Author: kdk ★2017
Date: 2017-04-03 00:47
Chris P wrote:
> It doesn't matter how thick the decorative turnings are on the
> sockets as it's still the same wood as the rest of the barrel
> or bell and IT WILL CRACK.
>
I guess there has been a wide range of reaction to this with no clear consensus. My intuition tells me that a ringless barrel seems more likely to crack under adverse conditions of use. But my own anecdotal experience is that I have a number of barrels, some ringless, some with traditional metal rings. My ringless barrels are produced by Clark Fobes and Morrie Backun. None of them has cracked in all the years I've owned (and sometimes used) them. I also have several barrels with standard rings at the socket ends and none of them has ever cracked, either. So the extreme insistence that a ringless barrel "WILL CRACK" seems hyperbolic. What my experience suggests to me is that if you don't force your barrel onto a tenon that's too tight a fit and don't for some reason rock your barrel on the tenon in an aggressive way (e.g. to get a stuck barrel unstuck), you may not need to worry about cracking the ringless barrel because of stress.
If the wood has a serious imperfection in its grain, I doubt that a metal ring will stop the wood from splitting at the weak spot along the grain. But, again, I've never had a barrel crack at all, ever (nor have any of my students), so even that doubt is pure conjecture on my part.
Karl
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