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RE: bakelite clarinet

Author: Bob
Date: 2002-10-01 13:48

"Bakelite" was (is?) a trademark of General Electric for its phenolic resin and the tm goes back I think to the late 1920s or earlier. Since G.E. was a major corporation and since they used Bakelite for many electric insulator parts the name became popular and eventually was and is used as a generic name for all phenolic resins. Off hand I cannot recall another popular name for any other manufacturer's phenolic resin. Bakelite was either a better or less costly replacement for hard rubber which had previously been commonly used for electric insulators. Since hard rubber had been used for clarinets "Bakelite" became its successor...however...early clarinet manufacturers concocted special names for the phenolic resin they used. I'm certain that in Europe there was an equivalent product(to Bakelite). Because clarinet manufacturers are very secretive about their tradenames and exactly what they use for clarinets (including barrels and mouthpieces) I won't take a guess as to what phenolic resins are being used today. Bakelite is in fact a plastic, but it is a thermoset plastic which means that once it has reacted it cannot be "remelted". Regrinds are however commonly used as fillers for new phenolic parts. With the progress of plastics technology both new thermoset plastics and non-thermosts have been developed. ABS is a popular plastic used today. ABS is an abbreviation for acrilonitrile-butadiene-styrene and there are a number of manufacturers who have their own trademark names...and,again, some clarinet manufacturers probably have their own names too.
General Electric,as you can imagine, liked everyone to think that all Phenolic resin was theirs so they never objected to the popularizing of it's name(just as General Motors didn't object to the popularizing of the word Frigidaire for all refrigerators.)
This reply is getting too long so email me direct if you want additional info. Bob

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Author

Date

bakelite clarinet new

Jean

2002-10-01 13:08

RE: bakelite clarinet new

Bob

2002-10-01 13:48