Author: mschmidt
Date: 2014-08-10 03:16
Good luck! I'm sure you will get lots of suggestions. The ones you have are a good start. I would, however, replace the twist/torque measurement with a flattening deflection (flattening relative to the naturally curved shape). This would be a more purely transverse complement to the lengthwise deflection in part 2.
It would be especially interesting if the flattening was done until failure--which might give us some clue as to the likeliness of cracking. This "failure point" may not be simply related to the flattening/force measurement, as cane is a microstructured composite, and the "glue" holding components together may not be as strong in a batch with stronger structural elements. In other words, some cane might be "stiff but brittle," while other canes might "stiff and tough," "flexible and brittle (?)" and "flexible and tough."
One thing that some people have sworn by is the size and spacing of the vascular bundles in the the interior of the cane, ranking it as "fine," "medium," and "coarse." This may be an underlying cause of some of the other more physical measurements, but I don't think that there will be a simple correlation between vb structure and physical properties.
(I am particularly interested in the cracking issue right now, as the more consistent and superior shape from my new supplier has come with a much, much higher rate of cracking late in the reed-making process. I even switched to a "less dense" grade of cane from this supplier, hoping that it would be less brittle, but no dice....)
Mike
Still an Amateur, but not really middle-aged anymore
|
|
The Oboe BBoard
.jpg){kind=small}
