Author: cjwright
Date: 2009-11-29 18:01
I just spent $250 having my diamond half-hole completely restructured on my Loree by Alvin Swiney, who is considered "an expert" here in the USA regarding Lorees and half-holes, particularly of the early Loree series such as the A-D series. He told me the following:
1. The half hole is a very careful balance obviously because you want it open enough so that the high D speaks freely.
2. You half to have it closed enough so that the high Eb can be decrescendoed down to a pianissimo without it cracking.
3. The shape of it matters because if it's too round, then your middle range (C#-Eb) will be out of tune. If it's too narrow then not enough vibrations/air passes through it and the high register doesn't speak well.
4. Not only does the shape of the half-hole matter, but the size of the hole of the key down to the bottom plate of which the half hole is cut out of matters. In drill terms, it's supposed to be between a 38-40 (39 is preferable for American setup)
5. The thickness of the plate from which the half hole also matters. In my case, it was too thin so he soldered another plate onto the existing plate to make it thicker.
6. The space in the crater of the tonehole also matters, as does the length of the chimney of the tone hole. He glued a cork washer into the crater, thus lengthening the chimney.
7. Because the plate of the half hole is thicker, and the cork washer was placed into the crater to make the chimney longer, the space between the top of the chimney and the bottom of the half-hole plate was less, so he added a very thick pad to the half-hole to give some more space back.
8. He recut the half-hole, but rather than having it a diamond shape, it's a weird squiggly line shape which is longer than the original diamond, but narrower.
9. Finally the undercutting of the half-hole needs to be correct. Again in my case, he undercut it a hair more with a dome-shaped undercutter.
All this was done to fix my high Eb from cracking while decrescendoing, and was based off of my setup which is an American Philadelphia scrape with a 10 year old Loree (MJ, my new backup).
Cooper
Blog, An Oboe In Paradise
Solo Oboe, Thailand Philharmonic Orchestra
Post Edited (2009-11-29 18:02)
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