 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Koo Young Chung
Date: 2007-03-16 01:43
With lots of key mechanism on clar.,I think some maker should have tried titanium instead of traditional brass or nickel.
But I never heard anyone tried this material.
Other than price issue,is there any reason that keys aren't made of titanim?
I think it would make a clarinet much lighter.
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Author: skygardener
Date: 2007-03-16 02:28
if the weight is different, the balance and feel of the mouthpiece will change. it may change for the better, but many would not want it simply because it doesn't 'feel' right.
notice the Tosca- the extra key adds weight, so Buffet doesn't add the ring on the bell. Having both would be too heavy.
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Author: Kchui999
Date: 2007-03-16 02:53
Titanium also scratches fairly easily. How about tungsten???
Chui
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Author: joannew
Date: 2007-03-16 06:56
Hanson in Yorkshire makes a titanium bodied clarinet, although I don't know what the keys are made from. Their website (hansonclarinets.com) doesn't show any pictures, only the price (ouch!). Anyone got their hands on one of these?
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Author: Chris P
Date: 2007-03-16 10:47
From what I've heard, titanium isn't as easy to work with as nickel silver when it comes to soldered joints.
Former oboe finisher
Howarth of London
1998 - 2010
The opinions I express are my own.
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Author: Gordon (NZ)
Date: 2007-03-16 11:24
For titanium, the price issue for the manufacture is HUGE for the odd shapes of clarinet keys.
On the other hand, a relatively new alloy with an amorphous molecular structure, not used a lot yet, may be ideal. It is trademarked "Liquidmetal".
Light, extremely strong, very rigid, very resistant to corrosion, good appearance, and best of all, can be cast in cheap molds like plastic is cast, at quite a low temperature, with such accuracy that cast scalpel blades do not need sharpening! I imagine a set of keys could be cast for a fraction of the present cost, and be a lot lighter while being stronger an less bulky.
Its downsides are:
- It is brittle (ie will snap more or less at its elastic limit, so adjustments by bending will not be posible, but why should they be necessary if such accurate castings can be made? And is brittleness a problem when it is so very strong?)
- It is possibly difficult to solder (but why would you need to?)
- It melts at a relatively low temp (but who bakes their clarinet in a moderate oven!)
It also may special (acoustic?) properties in that when it is hit, almost no energy is lost. This could make the action of a reed slapping against it far more efficient than what we are used to. (For an absolutely incredible demonstratikon of this property, in the link below click on “Media Center”, “Multimedia”, Ball Bouncer Demonstration – DSL/CABLE)
This stuff is already being used for cell phone hinges and cases, tennis racquets, golf clubs, specialised scalpel blades for eye surgery, ....
See http://www.liquidmetal.com/
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Author: Phat Cat
Date: 2007-03-16 11:52
Gordon:
This sounds great for us Potatoes-in-Ears crowd. Those with more discriminating hearing will no doubt have objections to the massive acoustic distortion that would result from such a radical change in key resonance.
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Author: Tony Beck
Date: 2007-03-16 13:05
Titanium would look very cool. It polishes beautifully and has a unique golden tint. It’s much lighter than German silver and it almost never tarnishes. Unfortunately it has some problematic properties for making instrument keys. First, due to its crystal structure, titanium doesn’t bend very well, so making key adjustments would be about impossible. That could be compensated to a certain extent with more adjusting screws, like the new Bakun Leblancs. But, if you don’t like the position of the C#/G# or left pinky F/C key, too bad. Titanium has very good hot strength, so heating up the keys to bend them won’t help.
The big problems are with fabrication. Special tools and cutting oils are required. If you don’t do it right, titanium will eat your cutters for lunch (and I can attest to that personally). Above ~ 500C, titanium absorbs gases out of the atmosphere and becomes brittle as glass. It can also catch fire. When it lights off it will burn as intensely as magnesium and is all but impossible to put out. Therefore, any processing that requires elevated temperatures, such as forging, soldering, brazing, or welding has to be done in an argon atmosphere. Pure silver is the only solder/braze filler that will produce reasonably strong joints. Another problem in large scale manufacturing operations is that titanium filings can be powerfully explosive, so special metal dust control procedures are required.
A one off clarinet with titanium keys would be a work of art, but the keys would probably have to be made by Lockheed’s Skunk Works! Dave Spiegelthal, do you have any connections in that area?
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Author: Terry Stibal
Date: 2007-03-16 13:07
Quote:
Tungsten is extremely dense and heavy.
H'mmm. I've been described that way in the past...
Titanium has a number of disadvantages in addition to the "alien metal used for a long established purpose" one.
• It is very strong, but shaping it and adjusting it takes a lot more force when doing so by "forging" the metal. Forging is something that you want to do when making the key originally (it retains the strength the the "grain" of the forged metal affords it), but not something that you want to do after it is put together. Some bending with relative ease is a good thing. Silver and nickel silver are much more forgiving in this fashion.
• The very strength that makes it so good for many aerospace purposes is a downfall when fitting it on a "living material" like wood. A key that can't (easily) be bent may never change shape as a result, but the wood body of the instrument will change shape in a dynamic fashion. Once you do get "out of registry", that strong titanium key becomes a major liability.
Oddly enough, I've never seen any great call to make clarinets out of sterling silver. I am a firm believer in the difference that such a material makes in a flute (but am way too cheap to shell out the bucks for a sterling head joint), but have only very occasionally seen that metal used to construct a clarinet.
leader of Houston's Sounds Of The South Dance Orchestra
info@sotsdo.com
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Author: David Spiegelthal ★2017
Date: 2007-03-16 13:49
Tony, I'm afraid I have no 'in' with the Skunk Works! I have worked with titanium in the past, and as pointed out above it is quite expensive and VERY difficult to machine. Total overkill from the clarinet perspective. I think the answer is MORE INTELLIGENT keywork design using existing materials, rather than a change of materials.
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Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2007-03-16 14:14
The flutemaker Jon Landell made several titanium flutes, which took an enormous amount of work. A narrative of his trials and tribulations is at http://replay.waybackmachine.org/20090219064231/http://landellflutes.com/-Research/PDF/whytitanium.pdf.
A few excellent sterling silver clarinets were made, mostly by Bettoney and also by the flutemaker Haynes. I have an excellent Bettoney Eb, and Alexander Williams told me he played one in the New York Philharmonic. Gaston Hamelin, the principal in Boston, played a silver clarinet, probably a Bettoney, and is said to have been fired for it, though I have my doubts. There's a picture of him holding it, and he probably used it for his great recording of the Debussy Premiere Rhapsodie.
The almost-top model was the Cundy-Bettoney Silva-Bet, which has been discussed extensively here and on the Klarinet list. The top model was the H. Bettoney. Charlie Ponte had a Bb/A set, which I've always kicked myself for not buying.
Silver transmits heat extremely quickly, so a silver clarinet heats and cools in a blink. You'd need a heated peg to put the A clarinet on to keep it from being very flat for the first few seconds, and even stopping for as long as, say, the first trio of the Mozart Quintet third movement would be a problem. The Haynes had double walls, with a hole you could blow into to keep the temperature up, but I have to think it would start to smell bad pretty soon.
Nevertheless, if a top quality clarinet were made in silver, I'd get one in a minute.
Ken Shaw
Post Edited (2011-04-09 13:46)
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Author: Bob Phillips
Date: 2007-03-16 14:19
Point of Trivia
The Corvette Z06 uses titanium in its exhaust system. Stainless steel corrosion resistance with aluminum weight.
This was enabled by the supplier of the exhaust system bagging a couple of war-surplus Soviet submarines and "mining" the material.
Bob Phillips
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Author: Chris P
Date: 2007-03-16 14:22
"The Haynes had double walls, with a hole you could blow into to keep the temperature up, but I have to think it would start to smell bad pretty soon."
There's no reason why this can't be connected to a water pump and a heater unit to circulate warm water through it (with an attachment at the top for the inlet and at the bell for the outlet so the warm water keeps the top part of the clarinet at the warmest temperature)! The water hoses could cause trouble if they're too short.
Former oboe finisher
Howarth of London
1998 - 2010
The opinions I express are my own.
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Author: John O'Janpa
Date: 2007-03-16 14:43
The now retired Blackbird supersonic spy planes were/are? titanium.
Might be able to "mine" some of these if they are sitting around in a desert somewhere.
I worked at an industry that used titanium equipment. One day some careless use of a cutting torch caught a conveyor built of titanium on fire. The required halogen fire extinguishing system, put it out before anything else was involved, but we had a few anxious moments.
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Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2007-03-16 15:29
John -
In high school physics (back in the days when such experiments were permitted), we would light a strip of magnesium and drop it in a beaker of water, where it would merrily pry the hydrogen and oxygen molecules apart and use them for fuel. I don't doubt that titanium would do the same.
I suppose a halogen extinguisher uses, say, foam filled with argon to deprive the flame of oxygen.
Ken Shaw
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Author: joannew
Date: 2007-03-16 17:08
"There's no reason why this can't be connected to a water pump and a heater unit to circulate warm water through it..."
... doubling as a home distillation apparatus between gigs?
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Author: Chris P
Date: 2007-03-16 17:59
Pump cold water through it while playing in the summer and that would also work as a good distiller, and the alcohol can be collected in a beaker attached to the bell - so the amount of alcohol collected will depend on how much alcohol is in the player's breath!
Former oboe finisher
Howarth of London
1998 - 2010
The opinions I express are my own.
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Author: Terry Stibal
Date: 2007-03-16 18:19
Halogen extinguishing system douse a fire with Halon, a halogen derived gas that (in effect) displaces the oxygen and extinguishes the fire through starvation. No foam or power involved.
Most metal fires (usually magnesium but also including sodium and aluminum) were fought with extinguishing powders (Type D in the NFPA classification system, I seem to recall). I used to regulate a number of large factories involved in aluminum casting and extrusion, and a metal fire was a truly wondrous experience for all concerned, particularly the local fire departments.
The circulation system to maintain temperature is usually run the other way around, i.e. the fluid in question is circulated into or around an object to remove heat, not to add it. Examples here would be your car's radiator, the heat sink system on your high end Pentium computers and the like.
About the only direct analogs to the proposed clarinet warming system that I can recall are some very specialized chemical plants, where water and steam jackets are used to control some (relatively rare) endothermic chemical reactions by keeping them up to heat, and in the large Japanese aircraft carrier submarines, where a pre-heating system for the aircrafts' engine oil was installed to minimize the time spent on the surface to warm the planes up prior to takeoff.
BUt, there's always room for one more bit of complexity. If we tolerate Conservatory oboes, surely a water-jacketed clarinet would be within the realm of possible...
leader of Houston's Sounds Of The South Dance Orchestra
info@sotsdo.com
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Author: Mark Charette
Date: 2007-03-16 18:59
Terry Stibal wrote:
> The circulation system to maintain temperature is usually run
> the other way around, i.e. the fluid in question is circulated
> into or around an object to remove heat, not to add it.
> Examples here would be your car's radiator, the heat sink
> system on your high end Pentium computers and the like.
Or the water cooler on your Pentium ... (overclockers have been doing that for years).
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Author: Bassie
Date: 2007-03-16 20:06
Titanium... strong as steel, light as aluminium. Stiffness might be a problem - you get light, springy components from titanium. I guess you'd forge keys from bar stock. Welding it is a real pig: best is under vacuum (!). Largely corrosion proof. You can get cool rainbow interference colours by the way you process it, might be nice. Oh, and there's some weird superplastic alloys you can get to make hollow components by inflating them. But overall, a bit far-fetched. :-)
Now on my desk I've got a disk about 6" across by 1/8" made of Tantalum. If you hold it in the middle and strike the edge it will ring with a pure tone for minutes... strangest thing you've ever heard. I have no idea why... but there just HAS to be some musical application for the stuff. Flute head joints maybe, I dunno.
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Author: stevesklar
Date: 2007-03-16 20:46
leave it up to Chris to find a way to make the clarinet into a alcohol making machine .. maybe circulate it back to the player
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Author: Koo Young Chung
Date: 2007-03-16 22:53
Silver clarinet sounds very interesting.
I think the difficulty lies in exact contolling of the bore diameter.
Can you ream it like grenadilla?
Otherwise you never get that precise inner bore structure.
Probably flute is more forgiving than clarinet as far as accuracy is concerned.
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Author: tictactux ★2017
Date: 2007-03-16 23:03
> Probably flute is more forgiving than clarinet as far as accuracy is concerned.
I wouldn't be so sure.
--
Ben
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Author: Gordon (NZ)
Date: 2007-03-16 23:10
You would not ream the non-cylindrical parts of the bore. You would draw it over a mandrel, as is done, it seemks quite accurately, with flute heads.
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Author: Koo Young Chung
Date: 2007-03-16 23:17
I'm not a flute or clarinet maker,but as a violin maker I use a reamer a lot.
I assume that reaming achieves higher precision than drawing over a mandrel. But this is just my guessing.
Please correct me if I'm wrong.
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Author: tictactux ★2017
Date: 2007-03-16 23:38
Reaming only works well if the material is of a certain stiffness and is reasonably thick-walled. Neither is the case with a silver flute.
The walls of a flute is about 0.4 mm thick.
The biggest disadvantage of reaming is that it takes material away, so you build a "weak spot" where you ream.
--
Ben
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Author: Gordon (NZ)
Date: 2007-03-17 13:53
I think the result of careful drawing over a mandrel gives a pretty accurate result.
From http://www.yamaha.co.jp/edu/english/factory/fl/fl_002.html
"After the metal used to form the tube is sanded and buffed, it is drawn to form a pipe with micron-level precision." (see a graphic of the process)
Probably a lot more accurate than the shape of a clarinet bore after some timber distortion and swelling from all the mosture it encounters. Many clarinet bores are significantly oval after a little use.
The flute head is tapered by putting it over a mandrel and drawing it though a hole in a lead or polymer block.
The very quick process is shown near the beginning of this clip (so why are heads so expensive!):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHSu0trGkRg
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Author: skygardener
Date: 2007-03-17 14:21
I have to ask- on clarinet, is it really a benefit (other than the 'cool' factor)? Clarinet is not that heavy to begin with.
However, a light weight marching Sousaphone would make a lot of High School kids happy! And saxophone, too.
Post Edited (2007-03-17 14:46)
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Author: Old Geezer
Date: 2007-03-18 00:29
Hanson clarinets have made a titanium clarinet...only one.
They take it to shows, demos, etc.
They also make a rosewood clarinet...their prices are really low!
Photos of the instruments on their website are terrific...if they sound half as good as they look....
Clarinet Redux
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Author: Terry Stibal
Date: 2007-03-18 18:30
As a bass clarinet player, I hardly notice the weight of a Bb or A soprano when it is in my ham sized hands. Hell, I can even play extended range bass off of my thumb while standing for extended periods.
But, that's me. I've known any number of soprano players who have had problems with the weight of a clarinet, and even one or two with the featherweight of an oboe. We are all different, after all, and they may have damage or pre-exisiing conditions of which we have no knowledge.
Of course, that didn't stop the guys and gals in my group from ridiculing a sax player who once showed up with a neck strap for his clarinet...
leader of Houston's Sounds Of The South Dance Orchestra
info@sotsdo.com
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