Klarinet Archive - Posting 000659.txt from 2001/11

From: "Keith" <100012.1302@-----.com>
Subj: [kl] RE: klarinet Digest 25 Nov 2001 09:15:01 -0000 Issue 3474
Date: Sun, 25 Nov 2001 10:44:04 -0500

Tony and Nick

Some similar work was being done a few years ago by Maurice Byrne
(Leamington Spa); if published it would have been in the Galpin Society
journal. The thesis sounds similar, ie if you measure the ovality, and can
decide from the grain pattern (tree rings) from where in the trunk the
instrument was cut you may be able to reconstruct the original bore. The
ratio of shrinkage radially and tangentially (with respect to the center of
the original trunk) in a wood is the property you need to know, then you can
work out the shinkage ratio for any cut. I think (but do not know first
hand) that this ratio is much less variable between woods than the absolute
amount of shrinkage. Since you can assume that the original bore was
circular, knowing this ratio allows you to calculate the original diameter.
I think that Maurice was working on the very few really early wooden
instruments, eg flutes from Egypt.

Keith Bowen

---------------------------------
Date: Sat, 24 Nov 2001 23:06:44 GMT
From: Tony@-----.uk (Tony Pay)
Subject: Re: [kl] reamers
Message-ID: <20011124.230644.65@-----.uk>

On Fri, 23 Nov 2001 10:30:48 +0000, njs5@-----.uk said:

> Ovality implies shrinking, and shrinking more in one direction than
> the other, and like my friend Tony Pay I know that correcting this
> must be bringing the clarinet closer to its original size.
>
> Nick

...whereas, I'd written previously:

> Some people think that to do such a thing is horrific, because it
> 'destroys evidence'. But I have yet to see even the beginnings of a
> study that uses information like the current dimensions of an
> unplayable wind instrument to draw conclusions of any worth. How
> could such a study even exist?

Yours is a sobering observation to me, Nick. Clearly you give an
example of someone 'drawing conclusions of some worth' from such
information. I'd totally forgotten about that. Shows how hasty one can
be when arguing for a point of view.

Let me turn the situation to positive use. I'm sure that members of the
list would be as interested as I was a few months ago, to hear what you
can deduce about the relationship between the current and original
boresize from measurements of the relative dimensions of such an oval,
plus some knowledge of the properties of the wood in question.

(Even if I forgot about it:-(

Tony

---------------------------------------------------------------------