Author: TomS
Date: 2016-10-26 03:03
The Greenline material wears out the tooling faster as well. I talked to Guy Chadash a few year ago, thinking about one of his barrels in Greenline, because of the better durability. He stated that he had special hard alloy reamers ordered because the Greenline dulled tooling much faster.
Also, as far as the availability of Blackwood, I don't think it is endangered or in short supply. About 90% of it is used for other purposes, such as carved artwork, etc. The quality seems to be down ... just look at the more open grain on current wooden instruments. Hopefully, we started looking at wood a few decades ago and started making changes to assure a good supply for many years to come. Some of the quality issues seem to be from pollution that negatively effects the wood ...
One of the players in a local band, of which I participate, has a Buffet that looks to be about 5 years old, but the wood is smooth and shiny as plastic ... almost no grain. I asked her "when was your clarinet was made/purchased?" 1946
Blackwood hasn't necessarily a better sound than other materials ... it is all subjective. It does have the paradigm of sound that we have came to accept in the last 200 years.
There may eventually be a new paradigm shift, as we have a mix of instruments made of new and different materials.
Tom
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