Klarinet Archive - Posting 000442.txt from 2003/09

From: "Tim Roberts" <timr@-----.com>
Subj: [kl] Re: Wood (was: Pads deteriorating quickly..more info)
Date: Tue, 16 Sep 2003 14:14:27 -0400

On Mon, 15 Sep 2003 22:17:47 -0700 (PDT), ormondtoby@-----.net (Ormondtoby
Montoya) wrote:
>
>Marginally related to the Great Oiling Debate:
>
>Clarinet manufacturers advertise that they select only the best wood for
>their clarinets. I suppose that, in nature, grenadilla trees can have
>knots and holes (er, I mean lacunae) and so forth, just like any other
>tree. But I'm wondering --- if I were to buy 50 pieces of grenadilla
>from someone like Ferree, would I be able to notice that some pieces
>were more or less dense than other pieces? And therefore oiling might
>give different results on different pieces of grenadilla?

This is an excellent question, and one that I would like to learn more about as
well.

I'm hoping someone with mpingo experience will pipe in here and offer some real
world stories, but in the meantime, I would direct folks to the web site for
the African Blackwood Conservation Project, which has a very good archive of
information about mpingo, a.k.a. blackwood, a.k.a grenadilla:

http://www.blackwoodconservation.org/

--
- Tim Roberts, timr@-----.com
Providenza & Boekelheide, Inc.

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