Resin for woodwinds

[Eric Duran]

This is a follow up to my wood for a recorder thread.

So it's been raining like crazy here in Oklahoma, making my wood (Maple? Pear?) recorder very temperamental.

That is making me consider the virtues of synthetic materials.

Anyone here know about making woodwinds out of resins, plastics, etc? Which ones work well? Do they make ones specially formulated for musical instruments?

I have an Aulos made from ABS resin. It works but sounds very plasticy, so I do not think it is a good option.

Edit: Maybe ebonite?

[David King]

Trad wood for clarinets, oboes, and bagpipes of various types is African backwood which is one of the most resinous woods around. It's quite stable once seasoned, it's a dream to turn and polishes up like glass. For the school grade clarinets the major manufacturers take all their wood shavings from the pro-grade instruments and mix it with an epoxy resin which they use to cast instruments that happen to sound really good apparently.
I'd probably start with acetal plastic which comes in white or black. is stable and very easy to machine.

If you want to try blackwood Gilmer in Portland, OR is the largest importer on the continent. If you called in with your dimensional requirements I'm sure they could come up with a suitable stick for you. It's quite reasonable compared to ebony for instance.

[Eric Duran]

Hi David, thanks for the wisdom.

What do you think of Ebonite (hard rubber) as a material? There is a company - Ridenour - making clarinets out of it and people have good things to say about them.

[David King]

Ebonite looks cool if you can afford it.

[Bryan Bear]

I think one of the reasons African Blackwood is the wood of choice is its reluctance to take on moisture. It is very, very dense and resinous and apparently does not overreact when you blow your wet breath through it. I dropped a piece into a bowl of water to demonstrate to someone that it sinks. When I took it out and shook it didn't even seem wet. I'm sure it moves with humidity changes (it is wood after-all) but it would seem to react very slowly.

[Stephen Bacon]

As stated, harder wood than maple or pear will be more stable, and in a better quality instrument it is less problematic. But be prepared to pay more money. And it will sound closer to your plastic recorder. Have you tried a drop of dish soap in the wind way. It is a surfactant. It breaks up the water molecule and helps prevent clogging. Another trick is to warm the instrument in hand or pocket befor playing. As a past recorder maker I have played instruments of probably 30 varieties of wood and plastic as well as stone , bone, and ivory. Every material has its pluses and minuses. None are perfect when it comes to condensation. If the wind way is narrow enough to guarantee a decent sound and response then one must learn to warm the instrument and rid it of problematic spit at regular intervals. The answer is a quality instrument and techinique. The material is irrelevant to controlling the little tropical rainstorm happening inside your recorder. Resins are more prone to make water moisture bead up than wood.

[Stephen Bacon]

I forgot to mention the resins. Delron works well. Many high end makers use polyester faux ivory. Acrylic is hard to polish out clear. Having helped 'fix' proto type plastic recorders for a manufacturer all I can say is acrylic wreaks havoc on reamers.

[Timothy Gregory]

Another factor in clarinet horns is their tonal difference to sax the main brass reed horn.
Sax is brassy while clarinet is more woody so it could be the wooden horn reflection.
The wooden horn might soften the tone compared to a clarinet horn made out of brass.
Will wood absorb some of the brassy tones which prevail without the wood dampener?
To test the idea might need a wooden sax to compare wooden reed horns with brass.

[Halgeir Wold]

why, - when you already have the soprano sax basically in the same tonal range as the B clarinet?