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Re: travel clarinet

Author: Bob Phillips
Date: 2012-02-08 16:00

After cracking my Buffet RC after heat soaking it in the RV's overhead compartment in the New Mexico desert, I tried to figure out how thermal stress acts to pull the wood apart.

The required data is not readily available (I'd hope that the major clarinet makers have it: thermal expansion and strength data for clarinet woods in all three directions relative to the grain direction).

Using "ebony" data, and realizing that some sticks of wood are stronger than others, I concluded that a 50-deg F temperature gradient through the wall of a wooden instrument would be about all that the wood could tolerate. You'd want to cut that critical delta-temperature in half or more to be sure that blowing into a cold clarinet won't crack it.

I suppose the other scenario of hot clarinet, cool breath could come up...

I'm about to take off for a spring-in-the-desert excursion of a couple months and am worried about having another crack; so I'm looking for a plastic Yamaha Bb to accompany my rubber Lyrique A.

Bob Phillips

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