Author: Bobo
Date: 2008-04-27 17:12
EBH,
I got it here thanks to a tip from Cooper Wright at his excellent oboe blog which I encourage all to visit barbaratheoboe.wordpress.com (thanks Coop!):
www.harrisreedcase.com/dialindicator1.html
I bought the small face analog one. I went analog for two reasons: 1. they're cheaper (some of the prices being asked by oboe suppliers for both digital and analog models seem outrageous btw, if they're worth the extra expense i wouldn't know why) 2. i like analog guages - they don't require batteries and i've had LCD screens that broke down over time. But it's a personal preference thing for sure and i'm sure there are good arguments either way. Regarding calibration, the digital models are probably easier to calibrate (i assume you push a button to normalize it to zero, but i'm not sure), but you can calibrate the analog ones by moving the bezel around the dial and also in the initial setup. As to accuracy, I think that depends on the internal mechanism more than anything else, not the readout mechanism, plus they all advertise accuracy to within .01 mm, anything more than that would be a false sense of precision. I don't see any advantage to having the option to read inches as opposed to mm, the metric system is superior for measurement and all other measurements (reed length etc.) are expressed metrically already.
As to whether they are useful, I'm completely sold on that. I do think, however, that the more deeply you probe the reed past the tip, the more likely there is additional inaccuracy in the reading because of the leverage pressure the reed exerts on the stem and the anvil; but i find that if i twiddle the reed a bit at the point i'm measuring and take the minimum reading, that's probably the most accurate one. At the end of the day, reedmaking is an art, but the more we can reduce variables with science the better, and I am convinced that this expensive experiment (that's how I thought about it too) was worth it.
Post Edited (2008-04-27 21:58)
|
|
The Oboe BBoard
.jpg){kind=small}
