Klarinet Archive - Posting 000685.txt from 2002/11

From: Tom.Henson@-----.com
Subj: RE: [kl] Greenline clarinets
Date: Mon, 25 Nov 2002 23:58:33 -0500

I have to give credit to Buffet for pioneering the development of this new
material.

They thought very carefully about this before they set out to experiment and
it must have taken them several years of working on it to get everything
just right. I'm sure there are compromises in this material just like
anything else, but from a sound standpoint I don't hear any.

I understand that a great deal of wood residue is lost in the traditional
method of manufacturing a wooden clarinet. Buffet recognized that they could
make use of this by product "waste" which was probably of no use to them
anyhow.

I would love to tour their factory just to see the Greenline manufacturing
process, but I have a feeling there are some trade secrets in there
somewhere.

I have heard that you have to start with a wooden billet about twice the
size of the finished clarinet. This must have resulted in a lot of wasted
wood and sawdust.

With African Blackwood trees/wood almost on the endangered species list,
this only made the waste that much more sad.

I'm sure Buffet approached this also from a cost standpoint. Why throw out
the wasted wood when they could use it to make a new line of clarinet and
thus maximize their investment in the purchase of the raw wood.

Therefore, it might be possible to make the equivalent of 1 1/2 clarinets
now out of the same amount of wood and this would offset their initial R&D
cost and the new tooling eventually.

This just makes so much sense that I do not understand why Selmer, Leblanc,
and Yamaha have not come out with their own version yet.

If cost does not dictate this move, then the dwindling supplies of wood
might.

Tom Henson

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