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Re: Does lining the bore with resin alter tone?

Author: Chris P
Date: 2022-11-10 19:46

Alternative materials to wood have been used for well over a century for clarinets which is well known and documented, but lining the bores on wooden clarinets has rarely been done and is a relatively new thing to the clarinet world.

Ebonite has been used since the 19th century as well a metal and metal lined ebonite top joints. Plastics and resins in the 20th century and more recently, powdered grenadilla and resin binder compressed into billets to make Greenline composite which is notorious for weak tenons and will also crack between some toneholes.

The positives with these alternative materials being they're not affected by humidity and with ABS resin, joints can be injection moulded to keep costs down for entry level clarinets. The downsides being they're affected by temperature and don't have the tensile strength as grenadilla, hence Greenlines being notorious for their tenons snapping if you so much as look at them the wrong way.

Metal (brass, nickel silver or solid silver) makes for the most dimensionally stable instruments and being far more dense than wood for its relatively thin wall thickness, the tone of a well made metal clarinet isn't even an issue. The downside with metal is the fact it will dent or bend if mishandled, knocked or dropped and as metal being an excellent conductor of heat, it will cool down much faster than wood when not being played.

A combination of wood with a metal lining doesn't always work out well, what with metal being far more stable than wood and you've all seen wooden flutes and piccolos with metal lined headjoints, metal lined sockets or metal tenon inserts where the wood has split, or metal lined sockets on oboes where the sockets have cracked.

Howarth partially line the top joint with ebonite on some of their oboes as do some other makers. Yamaha line the entire top joint on their Duet+ oboes (and clarinets) in ebonite on their 800 series and resin on their 400 series. Schreiber and Fox fully line the bores with resin on both joints on some of their oboes. Marigaux offer oboes in wood and plastic as well as offering the M2 with a plastic headjoint. Now Rigoutat are merged with Buffet, I'm not sure what options they now offer.

The entire top joint bore on clarinets doesn't have to be fully lined - partially lining it down to just below the LH1 tonehole chimney and above the E/B vent tonehole will protect the most vulnerable area of the top joint bore to safeguard against cracks happening. And with a partially lined bore, the notoriously weak middle tenon being all wood will mean it'll be far stronger than a thinned out/opened up wooden tenon with a plastic lining.

Former oboe finisher
Howarth of London
1998 - 2010
The opinions I express are my own.

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