 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Eddie Ashton
Date: 2002-06-03 13:02
Whilst this epistle was originally in response to an earlier query from Mr. Simpson about breaking in a new bass clarinet, I thought it might possibly be of wide enough interest to be worth a new posting. Apologies to those who don’t think so and are fed up with this oft discussed subject!
My advice would be the same as for any wooden instrument. The greatest threat to the wood comes from rapid temperature and/or moisture changes, particularly where these affect some parts of the body and not others.
There's little that can be done to protect against ambient temperature changes other than to keep the instrument in its own micro-environment ( its case) when moving from, say, indoors to outdoors etc. The potentially hazardous difference in temp. caused by blowing warm air into the instrument is pretty well unavoidable unless you never play it, which is rather self-defeating!
It is however quite easy to protect against moisture changes and as experience suggests this to be the cause of the majority of cracks, it's worthwhile addressing this problem.
99% of cracks emanate from places where water is allowed to come into contact with end grain. These are, the tenon ends of each joint, the inside mating surfaces of each socket, the top and bottom of each tone-hole and the joint between any metal fittings and the wood i.e. metal tenon end-sheaths or rings and, most importantly, where speaker tube and thumb-hole bushes protrude into the bore. It isn't coincidence that all the most common places that you've ever heard of a clarinet cracking are mentioned in the last sentence!
What to do about it? Well everybody has there own ideas on this one. This is only mine to add to the list.
For me, the various vegetable oils are o.k. but not too long-lasting (when you pull through, you wipe them off), and are messy. They can't be used in tone holes as the pads will stick and contact with the keywork must be avoided for the same reason.
Silicone liquid on the other hand is light and clean. It creates a microscopic water barrier, which is long lasting and quite hard to remove without the use of solvents and
if it gets on keywork or pads, it won’t stick (quite the opposite in fact).
Repeat once every 6months.
One last point relating to this topic – When using an absorbent pull-through, don’t pull through too quickly. Give the moisture time to absorb into the material of the cleaner, otherwise it gets pushed into the tone-holes as it passes them and they gradually fill with dirty water – yuk!
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Author: Bob
Date: 2002-06-03 14:43
The idea of using silicone oil as a bore oil is interesting and I don't have an opinion or experience with it. Silicone oil and grease are known for their propensity to "migrate" but I would not imagine that this would not be detrimental to pads. I have used Silicone grease as cork grease on occasion and am not especially fond of it for that purpose. Regarding cracking per se...I am of the opinion that the propensity to crack is mainly the result of inadequate curing of the wood, the stresses induced by machining, and the unbalance of internal stresses caused by unsymmetrical hole placement. I think clarinet sections have different potentials for cracking once made up into horns and that the ones that are going to crack will do so almost regardless of what one does to prevent it. There is more mythology regarding clarinet oiling and cracking than in Wagner's music.
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Author: Gordon (NZ)
Date: 2002-06-04 02:57
Eddie wrote "99% of cracks emanate from places where water is allowed to come into contact with end grain. These are, the tenon ends of each joint, the inside mating surfaces of each socket, the top and bottom of each tone-hole......"
I would challenge that. I have seen many cracks. Cracks involving tenons are almost always as a result of damage from knocking or dropping.
I agreee that cracks often involve tone holes but that is probably because these are "stress raisers", i.e. any stress forces of ANY sort are higher here because of missing material. It is possible that moisture getting into end grain - has little to do with the splits across tone holes. It is reasonably common to get splits going past posts. There is no water here, but another stress raiser certainly is.
I agree with Bob - "I am of the opinion that ......"
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Author: L. Omar Henderson
Date: 2002-06-04 03:40
I have to agree with Gordon who has seen and repaired more cracks than those of us who conjure on the physics and the chemistry of wood cracking. I have investigated using silicone and other polymers for oiling wood but they all, especially silicone, displace moisture in the wood and the natural oils and oils used to impregnate the wood which bind moisture and maintain the the natural architecture and structure of the wood.
Silicone will indeed migrate into the interstatial spaces and weaken the structure of the wood. One would think that this elasticity would preclude cracking but it weakens the integrity of the wood and indeed leads to increased potential for failure (i.e. cracking). Use of the proper oil - one that penetrates the surface -is not messy and the tone holes can be treated with an angled cotton tipped swab. Only the oil that has not penetrated the wood is removed by swabbing.
One could argue that other polymers might be useful as a wood treatment (and we find them some day) but the natural plant derived oils have the ability to bind water which other man made molecules lack. Nature has created and refined the structure of these oils to keep the plant kingdom from perishing because of the oil-water incompatibility issues. The use of plant oil-water emollient keeps the tubes and fine structure of the wood in a natural symmetry of the original wood structure when living as a tree.
The Doctor
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Author: Gordon (NZ)
Date: 2002-06-04 13:54
Omar, you are a research chemist but come across as a dedicated 'greeny'.
It is amazing how we so often find the most amazing solutions in nature. It is only a matter of checking their appropriateness for our specific purpose, and maybe also enhancing their desirable properties and inhibiting or removing their undesirable ones.
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Author: Bob
Date: 2002-06-04 16:43
I assume "greeny" means one dedicated to natural products and not "greenhorn". "Man made" products do have their advantages sometimes,however, or we would still be chewing willow bark for headaches instead of taking an aspirin. I certainly do agree on the slow "pull through" for moisture absorption.
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Author: Eddie AShton
Date: 2002-06-05 08:36
Most interesting and thought provoking comments gentlemen, for which thanks.
I was of course refering to cracks which "appear" in normal use as opposed to those caused by whacking the thing against a wall, Gordon.
There can be little argument about the point that cracks appear or home in on "stress raisers" or places where machining has taken place, but surely this is just an unavoidable fact. Given that we think there are benefits in making the instrument from wood, we have to accept that in doing so, we will induce unequal stresses in the material. This in itself doesn't usually threaten the wood, as obsevation suggests that it won't crack if it's left in its case and never played! Ergo, it's the playing which induces the cracking from these places and therefore it is this aspect which needs addressing.
It would be most useful if the chemical and biological points raised, relating to weakening of the structure, could be put into context. The description sounds rather akin to pouring water onto toilet tissue, and so weakening its structure, but I suspect this is some light years away from being the case. Is it possible that this might be a theoretical disadvantage which would be far outweighed by its benefits.
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Author: Gordon (NZ)
Date: 2002-06-05 10:58
I think of a dry, fairly thick sponge, bent about a bit to give it some flexibility. This reperesents the timber wall of a clarinet.
Now expose ONE side of the sponge to water, say in a puddle on the bench. This side expands and makes the sponge curve upwards at the edges. It curved to relieve stresses imposed by soaking one side with water. The timber wall of a clarinet cannot curve like this so to relieve its stresses it splits.
Now if we waterproof the spnge by putting it into a plastic bag, it is safe from stress. Some treatments ATTEMPT to water proof the clarinet timber.
Omar's treatment could be likened to establisning traces of 'moisturizer' inside the sponge so that it never gets to the very dried out state. This is what sponges are often like when we buy them. They are already in a slightly damp, stable state.
Is that about right Omar?
BTW I have not done the sponge experiment - if it doesn't work with a sponge, it will work with some other material. It certainly works with a plank of soft timber lying outside in a puddle.
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Author: L. Omar Henderson
Date: 2002-06-05 12:47
Some very good points made by all. Let me preface this with the caveat that each piece of wood is individual and generalizations are only valid to the population of pieces of wood and there are no absolute answers for each particular piece. These are observations and each area needs to be thoroughly and scientifically investigated with a statistically valid sampling technique and specifications for all conditions used. Unfortunately each of these subjects could be the material for a graduate level engineering thesis. Most of this research is aimed at confirming or perhaps debunking many of the myths, practices, and substances that we use on our wood instruments for their care.
I am fortunate to have some collegues in the engineering department at Georgia Technical Institute and they have helped with some state-of-the-art instrumentation. Much research has been conducted on various types of wood by the U.S. Govt. Dept. of Agriculture but little on imported grenadilla wood and it's cousins which are used for musical instrument manufacture.
The experiments (relevent to the current discussion) that I have done could be considered cursory by scientific standards but form outlines of puzzle pieces that often fit together into a recognizable pattern. Some of the areas that I have looked at are: 1) penetration of various oils - both natural and synthetic - into grenadilla wood by tagging the oils with fluorescent dyes which can be viewed through a fluorescence microscope in cross sections of wood treated with the oils in various ways, 2) gross anatomical analysis of wood structural characteristics in cross sections of wood treated with various oils and wood treated by hydration (adding water content) and dehydration techniques, 3) wood with various treatments exposed to stress - heat and cold, hydration and dehydration, and bending - lateral and tangential.
All of these experiments are on flat planar pieces of grenadilla wood and the physics of curved surfaces is a different "ball game" but some of the observations are suggestive of results that might be obtained on wood instruments (these should of course be studied individually).
Some of the observations are: 1) Certain types of oils will penetrate deeply into the cross section of grenadilla wood and others will not, 2) some oils with included water molecules will swell dehydrated wood to approximate "natural" wood architecture, 3) excessive hydration will swell wood and breakdown some of the wood architecture (I use architecture rather than the scientific names of the various plant structures and cellular components of wood), 4) upon bending stress, thermal, and hydration stress there can be failure and separation of wood architecture, 4) woods treated with various oils exhibit different failure rates with the aforementioned stressors and hydration characteristics, 5) adding holes (removing wood) increases the failure rate due to stressors and adds different patterns of failure, 6) close grained (number of lateral visable wood growth lines) decreased the stressor effects compared to "less close grained" or "wavy or swirled grained" woods but not to a significant extent (not a large enough sample),7)the presence of "pulp wood" increased failure rates. I could go on and on but many of these observations are things that we consider obvious and there are others that need confirmation, and some that are proprietary to my products.
Often when I post there will be areas for criticism but being a scientist I "usually" have some data, maybe not enough for a definitive answer, to support the answers. Eddie and Gordon have good points and my answers may apply to some wood samples but to test actual failed wood clarinet parts is too expensive and time consuming for this investigator.
The Doctor
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Author: Bob
Date: 2002-06-05 14:53
"obsevation suggests that it won't crack if it's left in its case and never played! Ergo, it's the playing which induces the cracking"
Eddie..this is sort of like the old one, "if a tree falls in the forest and there's no one present, does it make a noise". I have no documentation or experience but don't you suppose it's possible that there have been clarinets that developed cracks in the case before they were even played? Input on this board seems to indicate that, overall, few clarinets ever crack...just like few airplanes ever crash. My opinion is that there are some clarinet sections that,for several reasons, are just waiting to crack given the right set of conditions and when these conditions come together you get a crack. Other sections won't crack under almost any set of bad conditions. There have also been cases where pinned clarinet sections cracked again....go figure.
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Author: L. Omar Henderson
Date: 2002-06-05 16:27
Guess in my long epistle that I missed some of the practical points but these have been addressed in the past. But to rehash - like the board sitting in the puddle, portions of wood that receive excess hydration in proximity (inside of bore gets wet, outside is dry)to wood with significantly less hydration will exert tremendous hydrostatic pressures within the wood potentially leading to failure of the wood architecture (cracking). If waterproofing were complete and absolute (which it never will be due to the pores and tubules in the wood) then hydration stress and water loss will be minimal but where waterproofing is inadequate and/or worn off there will be areas of wet wood in conjunction to areas of dryer wood which gives rise to the first condition.
The theory behind using plant derived oils to retreat the wood (the wood was originally impregnated with these same type of oils during manufacturing) is to perpetuate the buffered water transfer in and out of the wood. Since plant derived oils selectively hold on to water molecules and the energy (e.g. dehydration) required to loosen successive layers of water molecules increases geometrically, then these water molecules gain and loose water very slowly (excess water being more easily lost) and lessen the absolute water influx and eflux from the wood, but allow the equalization of water content throughout the wood. These plant derived oils also seem to preserve the natural wood architecture much better than synthetic or petroleum based oils. Preserving the wood architecture helps protect from failure (cracking) in wood exposed to stressors - e.g. heat and cold, hydration and dehydration, and mechanical stresses. The types and mixtures of plant derived oils is an important factor in this proccess. Most synthetic and petroleum bases oils will not bind water and actually displace water from wood and disrupt the wood architecture giving its strength.
The Doctor
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Author: Mark Charette
Date: 2002-06-05 16:37
Bob wrote:
>
> "obsevation suggests that it won't crack if it's left in
> its case and never played! Ergo, it's the playing which induces
> the cracking"
>
> Eddie..this is sort of like the old one, "if a tree falls in
> the forest and there's no one present, does it make a noise".
Or closer to Schröedinger's cat. The clarinet is in a superposition of two states while it is in the case - cracked and non cracked. Opening the case to determine the state causes the wave function to collapse and the clarinet is cracked or not cracked.
;^)
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Author: Eddie AShton
Date: 2002-06-05 16:59
I think Omar's caveat that each piece of wood different is something on which we can all agree. My rather obtuse suggestion of leaving it in its box in order to avoid cracking was merely to illustrate the point that, of all clarinets being made,far fewer would crack if they were never subjected to being used. Of course, a certain percentage of the wood will have cracked before it's sawn into joint sized billets. Some more will crack whilst sitting on a pallet waiting for the first machining process to take place and so on through each stage of manufacture and subsequent use.
Everyone involved, from tree to finished product, has a vested interest in allowing as little waste as possible and to this end, each will have their own methods of limiting the potential damage (to their own pockets)!
The debate arises because we can only guess how many instruments would have cracked had we not done this or that to it. Or of course, would it not have cracked if we'd done this or that.
It's hard to match cause and effect when the goalposts (made from grenadilla of course) are constantly moving(huh).
Perhaps someone might be able to confirm or refute the idea that, years ago, the tree would have been "killed" standing for several years prior to felling. This, if true, would seem to me to have a considerable bearing on this subject.
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Author: L. Omar Henderson
Date: 2002-06-05 17:33
Eddie - Somehow the last illustration is lost on my brain (density 1.25-1.35 of grenadilla wood) but we have often discussed the three types of clarinets - those that will crack no matter what, those that will never crack, and those that may crack if exposed to the right length and duration of stress unless protected by some means. Again, unfortunately, these designations are not tatooed someplace on the clarinet so the prudent individual will use forms of protection from heat and cold, avoid mechanical injury, and use some form of product to treat the horn for potential hydration stress. The imprudent individual will pray that the crack will occur within the warranty period (they always seem to crack 1 year and a day after purchase however) or and instrument that will never crack. The caveat that each piece of wood is different does not remove it from the population statistics that govern the way many decisions are prudently made.
The Doctor
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Author: Eddie AShton
Date: 2002-06-05 17:33
Another niggleing point has just entered my sad mind and maybe Omar can help on this one too.
Observation suggests that different people have different make-ups (chemically speaking) which makes them act upon, and react to, things with which they come into contact. Commonly, for instance, people "attack" silver-plating by contact with hands and breath - which suggests sulphur to my simple knowledge.
By the same token, people have demonstrably different spittle(also chemically speaking) which seems to affect the surface of the wood with which it comes into contact i.e. the bore and tone holes.
Could this also be a factor to take into account when considering the reasons for cracking?
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Author: L. Omar Henderson
Date: 2002-06-05 17:56
There is a decided difference between siliva and the condensation of water vapor which collects in the bore of the clarinet. Siliva of course has certain digestive enzymes (which we have been lead to believe do not attack cellulose of wood or reed), and certain mirror images of the blood serum which include certain salts, and proteins, etc., etc. The water vapor from the lungs is pretty much just plain water but may have certain volatile chemicals that are exchanged from the blood vessels which vascularize the lung tissue (e.g. alcohol - the dreaded sobriety test administered by the local constable), but in minute quantities. Whether there are effects on the wood due to these volatile organic gases I do not know - an interesting area of research that I do not have time to pursue.
The Doctor
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Author: Gordon (NZ)
Date: 2002-06-06 11:57
It amazes me how much body matter some players manage to get in/on their instruments.
It is more apparent for saxophones where the deposits are more visible against the shiny gold lacquer or silver plating. Also sax players probably swab less.
Some players build up quite thick deposits of off-white matter in the bore, possibly tissue from (unhealthy?) mouth lining.
Some blow mouth liquid over the keywork, from either their nose or mouth, usually resulting in heavy corrosion of the mechanism.
Sometimes doing overhauls is nauseating.
I would hope that most clarinets are exposed to mainly condensed water vapour.
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Author: dAVID dOW
Date: 2002-06-06 16:01
I would not hasten to get into this fray but as a freezing Canadian where temps can dip over 40 degrees in less than 2 hours climate change may also be a factor and relative humidity I beleive may make a clarinet crack. My own personal experience does not support the theory but playing and heating up of the wood certainly may contribute to the uneven expansion of the wood of a clarinet and therefore lead to cracking. All the same however I do feel it is possible for an instrument to crack unplayed in a case and that in spite of the fact I have not witnessed it, this is certainly a possiblility. Unfortunately the grain on the wood of many newer instruments may also be a factor as well due to the fact much of the newer wood may be inferior in nature. Older players who I work with say that there was less a propensity in their day for clarinets to crack and some of them"feel" that this is due to the fact choice cuts of wood were used. However, I am not a great advocate of the Greenline either and yet this is a gaurantee of no cracks. My experience with the Greenline is that they are bright and simple copies of a live grained clarinet but with little or no individuality. Understandably the manufacturers are very guarded about the choosing of wood and in fact whether or not they are running with a surplus or need more grenadilla is not heard of in news or industry reporting. in fact one may hazard a guess that the wood is indeed on the decline due to the nature several large firms are now farming the grenadilla and have naturally large quotas for world markets. What this means for the clarinet player who is concerned about quality I am not sure, mainly becuase we also know the greenhouse gas levels being as high as they are also affect growth and effective farming of African Ebony/Grenadilla.
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