does it make any difference if the wood for the concertina sound board has been kiln dried or properly seasoned?.
I do know that some instrument makers [ mandolin guitar violin prefer seasoned wood] but do not know about concertina makers preferences.
The slow and patient way of easoning would be preferred, but kiln dried shouldn't pose any problems... Some suggestions in the past have been made that highest quality ply would be better... I had heard that some maker was considering this, but I don't know if it is in practice...
Green, yes cocus, the whole instrument, so it will shrink to a nice tight fit too, but will remain flexible to start with, pliable and responsive to even a light pressure...
Apparently much the same applies as for most other resonant musical instruments - the better the wood, the better the final sound.
So, Jeffries, arguably the best-sounding concertinas ever made, apparently incorporate an exceptionally tight-grained piece of, I believe it is sycamore, as the soundboard material.
Has anyone made a concertina with an Engelman spruce soundboard, I wonder ?
If the piece of wood in question is only small, it hardly matters how it was seasoned. The advantage of natural seasoning over kiln-drying is that the timber has time for the internal stresses to even out gradually, so the risk of splits and 'shakes' is reduced when it is cut up into smaller pieces.
But the soundboard of a concertina doesn't function as a soundboard on a resonant musical instrument. Take the cover off, press a thumb to it, play a note, and you will not witness a change in the sound. I have done this. The "soundboard" even has reeds sitting on it, dampening any incidental vibrations that are present, further proof that a concertina soundboard doesn't need vibrate freely to produce a sonorous note. The sound is produced by a vibrating reed and propagates along an airstream and is not like a guitar where the sound is projected outward through the vibrating top and reflacted from the back.
You could use plywood, kevlar, metal, high density foam, MDF, practically any material that is as stable as seasoned wood. Some choices would obviously make more sense than others - like sycamore which is cheap (in most places) and easy to obtain.
I can't think of any practical use for unseasoned wood, except to maybe build a raft or a pallisade. It'd be pretty silly to build anything, especially a precision instrument from unseasoned wood. It would shrink down to the size of its dry weight and fall apart, and green wood can't be worked the same way seasoned wood can, so it might not even be possible.
GW!!! The 'soundboard' needs to be stable, not vibrating. The vibrating and tone producing part is the reed, more often one at a time, sometimes in pairs and chords, but the board they're settled into is there as a secure base and a firm part of what the instrument as a whole is built around, not part of the reverberation, not tone producing itself, not like with string instruments where the body of the instrument is a very important part of the productiong of tone, and where more often than not the 'soundboard' is some species of spruce, cedar or redwood, softwoods that would be a poor choice for a concertina...
There are marked differences under the microscope between kiln dried and air seasoned timber. Both are 'seasoned', one faster than the other, and one results in more cellular damage, but both woods would work here, though my preference is always for the slow dried. But as gam and GW rightly highlight, both are 'seasoned', in different ways. Even with 'kiln dried' there are different practices, including the use of microwaves...
Sycamore and the maple family are also generally sound woods, not as temperamental as others that can keep moving even years later, as can boxwood, the damned stuff ~ but it is so beautiful, especially English boxwood...
This is also why high quality plywoods have been considered in he past, and synthetics like graphite, and might now be in use by certain makers, or being experimented with?
Drying and seasoning are two different things. Drying is the reduction of the water content of the wood, seasoning is the reduction of internal stresses.
With air dried wood the two things happen simultaneously - the wood dries slowly enough that it can shrink and warp to reduce the stresses as it dries.
With kiln dried wood you get an effect known as 'case hardening' - the outer layer of wood dries first. As it dries it shrinks and hardens, putting pressure and hence stress into the wetter wood inside.
When you take a large board, and saw it up into little bits for making instruments, kiln dried wood will shrink and warp more than air dried, because there is more residual stress in it. But providing you cut the wood to almost the right size several weeks (or preferably months) before you want to use it, so that the final seasoning is done at that size, then there probably isn't much to choose between the two. Some guitar makers like kilned soundboards for their artificially low moisture content (they know that from that point on, the wood is only going to expand, not contract) Others prefer air dried for its overall greater stability.
When it comes to concertinas (where is the soundboard in a concertina?) you have the difficult situation that the 'rims' have to be stuck on to the plates across the grain on some sides. Wood expands and contracts much more across the grain than along it, so you land up with differential expansion rates, and the thing tries to rip itself apart when the humidity changes. For that reason it is essential to use wood that expands and contracts as little as possible. That means, old, well seasoned wood - whether it was initially dried in a kiln or a sticking shed.
Old well-seasoned wood will change with humidity just the same as new well-seasoned wood, surely? The main thing is to get rid of the stresses before making the instrument - as anyone who has used vacuum-packed wood from a DIY store will know. A small piece of wood will stabilize within a few weeks - maybe even days, after which it is subject only to the normal changes in humidity and temperature.
Old wood does still move with humidity, but to a much lesser extent that new wood. Don't ask me why - I would guess that the lignin initially dries, but keeps hardening with age, much as varnish dries when the solvents evaporate, but carries on hardening of a period of time.
Slow 'seasoning' of timber allows things to shrink and move into a form that can then be worked, however that's wanted. With boxwood it can mean several stages over years, you eventually allow it to move where it wants, work it a bit, leave it, work it a bit, leave it. Then, hopefully, somewhere down the line it settles down. Wood that goes through this 'seasoning', allowing it to lose moisture slowly, and to shrink and move, will not react quickly to changes in humidity, but that doesn't mean you don't want a case for a finished instrument and a humidifier. Extremes are extremes, and I've seen a harp completely destroyed after being left out in freezing conditions. Wood that isn't allowed to settle in properly will react more quickly to temperature changes.
As mentioned above by skreech, 'case hardening', akin to bread drying out where the crust gets hard and brittle but the inside can still be soft, such wood is more 'reactive' to changes in temperature and humidity. Another wood difficult to season properly, requiring patience and time, is cocobolo. Some disreputable dealers pull the same trick as these criminals that try to profit from 'free range' and 'organic' items that are bogus, with wood claiming that it is 'air dried', properly seasoned, increases the value. However, as also mentioned, under the microscope the damage to cell walls by kiln drying, especially quick drying, is obvious, exploded cell membranes from the escaping steam, this is true with both hardwoods and softwoods...
It's a constant learning process I find fascinating. I'm a tree hugger, and also love the products of that growth too ~ timber and the transformation of that into something that makes music... More trees please!!! More forests and jungles and less of this decimation and loss of habitat... I can dream...
"exploded cell membranes from the escaping steam" Maybe if you put the timber on a bonfire; but kilns are controlled-environment areas, not furnaces. The timber may actually be of a better quality than that air-dried in variable climates, where sunshine, fog and frost can not be eliminated. The one form of seasoning I would warn against, which thankfully you don't see much these days, is pressure-injection, which relied on the introduction of chemicals to displace the moisture. I would suggest that of more concern should be the grain, or the figure, and the type of wood, rather than how it was seasoned. If it has been lying about the workshop for a while, it will be fine.
Yeah, I don't know about lumber yards, but the 'kiln' a lot of tonewood suppliers use isn't really a kiln at all, it's a desiccator - a shipping container hooked up to a very powerful de-humidifier, which dries the wood quickly, but without heating it.
gam ~ the cells are still burst, broken, even in a 'controlled' kiln... Good time based seasoning means a controlled environment, in a sense a 'slow' kiln, but using just basic environmental controls to keep some kind of constant, avoiding, in areas where there is a problem, extreme changes in temperature and humidity, as in places like the Canadian Maritimes...
Having used a microscope on timbers that have experienced different treatment ~ I'm not bullsh*tting, though maybe 'exploded' sounds a bit strong, it damn well looks like that when viewed up close...
Yes skreech, as mentioned previously, I know of different methods for drying timbers. I've seen boards of spruces and maples fed into and through long 'heated' kilns, commercial practices, which also work to remove the moisture and humidity in the air, and after a time the timber comes rolling out out the other end and then feeds down a chain where it is graded and stacked accordingly. I remember experiments being done with microwaves, and some commercial companies using large ones. However, it has been sometime since I was anywhere near that kind of carry on so can't say what the state of curing timber is at present.
There have been a few articles on the whole process in various magazines and journals ~ "Fine Woodworking", one I've subscribed to from issue #1, "The Strad", etc., and the journal of the BVMA (British Violin Making Association), as well as other such periodicals concerned with wood for musical instruments.
Don't talk to me about 'experiments done with microwaves. A few weeks back I put a test slip of Laburnum in the microwave to get an idea of what it would be like when it was dry. I overcooked it, the wood burnt, filled the kitchen with smoke and left a toxic residue all over the inside of the microwave. I still can't heat a burger without everyone in the house getting runny eyes.
I'm not a concertina player, but how exactly does the wood vibrate? Isn't the concertina essentially a harmonica with a bellows? Or does the wood somehow vibrate in addition to the reed? Forgive my ignorance.
If the wood is essentially to hold the reeds, like the comb on the harmonica, then the material itself need only be stable. Multiple tests have confirmed that an independent listener cannot tell the difference between differing harmonica comb materials. (See Harp-L for details.)
I can certainly see that there would be an aesthetic difference. How does the wood in a a concertina contribute to the sound?
I guess you missed the other 30 comments in the discussion?
The wood of a concertina soundboard doesn't vibrate - or at least it's not supposed to as it does on a stringed instrument, and its vibrational/resonant impact on a sounding reed is not discernible to the ear.
Ok, so what's the point of wood discussion? Why not an intrinsically more stable material that is moisture resistant? Perhaps I doubled up on the pain meds.....
The OP asked about wood, so we were talking about wood.
A manufacturer could use a variety of other materials for every aspect of the construction, not just the soundboard. I mentioned a few in an earlier post, but as I said, some make more sense than others for practical reasons.
The discussion turned to a question of stability - namely that of kiln dried wood versus wood that has been dried in a more 'natural' fashion as by stickers over time. Personally, I believe that if wood has been properly kiln dried (kiln is somewhat of a misnomer, like soundboard in this case) then it has most or sometimes all (depending on a few things) of the attributes of a 'seasoned' piece. As was stated earlier, the stability of kiln lumber can change after it enters its new environment outside the drying chamber. This is why after purchasing, most luthiers and furniture makers allow their lumber to stand in the environoment in which it will be worked or used before beginning to work with it (for me, this means bringing it into the shop and leaving it there for a few weeks where the humidity and temperature is similar to most indoor environments in the area).
Some woods are inherently more stable than others, kiln dried or seasoned. This is why some woods make more sense than others. Another reason we make so many things out of wood when we can use other things is cost. Sycamore is cheap compared to other woods, it is widely available.
Peter Hyde in Australia has been experimenting with alternative materials for his accordions, man-mande and natural, with very interesting results. The people at Taylor Guitars are researching other woods to use for the non-resonant components of their guitars. There is a company in Germany that makes accordions out of carbon fiber. But for the average guy, making concertinas out of wood is easiest and with some species, has little if any drawbacks. It is acceptably stable, inexpensive, and readily available.
And so are guitars, by Ovation and Parker to name but a few.
The need for conservation with regard to constructing things out of wood, various species of tree, the felling of forests etc., is more important than ever. But it's also interesting how disturbing it is to think of ever wanting or needing to purchase a carbon fiber mando or guitar.
It's going to be hard to get us off of wood, mentally anyway.
Fylde has been making instruments from recycled timbers, bank counter mahogany and the slats of whiskey casks. Taylor built a demo instrument out of pallets found next to the company dumpster. There are some other examples floating around. The Musicwood Coalition is trying to get big companies on board to buy only from approved sources.
I certainly would like to see more instruments made from found wood sources. And there are dozens of underutilized species. In Florida where I used to live, they felled thousands of acres of slash pine, pond apple, cypress, lignum vitae, and Dade county pine and it all went straight to the chipper, right there next to the construction site. It would be very nice to have things made form local lumber there, but it's just not a reality in the rush to build more, faster.
My whole house is done out with timber that has been chucked out or - rarely - bought from a demolition yard that specialises in reclaimed materials. The only wood I buy 'new' is that I use occasionally to make violins. although even then I have use reclaimed mahogany and bits of old instruments from junk shops. I am bemused by the building trade's attitude to timber, and have seen lovely wood thrown in a skip because it has some blemish or other that is negligible or can be planed off. If it isn't wormy or rotten, it is usable and -- more to the point -- stable. I know two tree surgeons, and they both put everything through the chipper and leave it on site to rot down rather than re-cycle it. It's a shame.
sound board for concertinas
sound board for concertinas
does it make any difference if the wood for the concertina sound board has been kiln dried or properly seasoned?.
I do know that some instrument makers [ mandolin guitar violin prefer seasoned wood] but do not know about concertina makers preferences.
# Posted on July 3rd 2010 by Dick Miles
Re: sound board for concertinas
Not seasoned. Of course not. They much prefer to use the wood when it's still green and then let it shrink to get more air into the concertina.
# Posted on July 3rd 2010 by David Levine
Re: sound board for concertinas
The slow and patient way of easoning would be preferred, but kiln dried shouldn't pose any problems... Some suggestions in the past have been made that highest quality ply would be better... I had heard that some maker was considering this, but I don't know if it is in practice...
Green, yes cocus, the whole instrument, so it will shrink to a nice tight fit too, but will remain flexible to start with, pliable and responsive to even a light pressure...
# Posted on July 3rd 2010 by ceolachan
I forgot to end that last one with a smilie ~
# Posted on July 3rd 2010 by ceolachan
Re: sound board for concertinas
Apparently much the same applies as for most other resonant musical instruments - the better the wood, the better the final sound.
So, Jeffries, arguably the best-sounding concertinas ever made, apparently incorporate an exceptionally tight-grained piece of, I believe it is sycamore, as the soundboard material.
Has anyone made a concertina with an Engelman spruce soundboard, I wonder ?
# Posted on July 3rd 2010 by Guernsey Pete
Re: sound board for concertinas
If the piece of wood in question is only small, it hardly matters how it was seasoned. The advantage of natural seasoning over kiln-drying is that the timber has time for the internal stresses to even out gradually, so the risk of splits and 'shakes' is reduced when it is cut up into smaller pieces.
# Posted on July 3rd 2010 by gam
Re: sound board for concertinas
Hardwoods! ~ no question...
# Posted on July 3rd 2010 by ceolachan
Re: sound board for concertinas
But the soundboard of a concertina doesn't function as a soundboard on a resonant musical instrument. Take the cover off, press a thumb to it, play a note, and you will not witness a change in the sound. I have done this. The "soundboard" even has reeds sitting on it, dampening any incidental vibrations that are present, further proof that a concertina soundboard doesn't need vibrate freely to produce a sonorous note. The sound is produced by a vibrating reed and propagates along an airstream and is not like a guitar where the sound is projected outward through the vibrating top and reflacted from the back.
You could use plywood, kevlar, metal, high density foam, MDF, practically any material that is as stable as seasoned wood. Some choices would obviously make more sense than others - like sycamore which is cheap (in most places) and easy to obtain.
I can't think of any practical use for unseasoned wood, except to maybe build a raft or a pallisade. It'd be pretty silly to build anything, especially a precision instrument from unseasoned wood. It would shrink down to the size of its dry weight and fall apart, and green wood can't be worked the same way seasoned wood can, so it might not even be possible.
# Posted on July 3rd 2010 by gravelwalks
Re: sound board for concertinas
But the OP asked whether kiln dried was as good as 'properly' seasoned. Both are seasoned, just in different ways.
# Posted on July 3rd 2010 by gam
Re: sound board for concertinas
Kiln is properly seasoned, in most cases.
# Posted on July 3rd 2010 by gravelwalks
Re: sound board for concertinas
GW!!! The 'soundboard' needs to be stable, not vibrating. The vibrating and tone producing part is the reed, more often one at a time, sometimes in pairs and chords, but the board they're settled into is there as a secure base and a firm part of what the instrument as a whole is built around, not part of the reverberation, not tone producing itself, not like with string instruments where the body of the instrument is a very important part of the productiong of tone, and where more often than not the 'soundboard' is some species of spruce, cedar or redwood, softwoods that would be a poor choice for a concertina...
# Posted on July 4th 2010 by ceolachan
Re: sound board for concertinas
There are marked differences under the microscope between kiln dried and air seasoned timber. Both are 'seasoned', one faster than the other, and one results in more cellular damage, but both woods would work here, though my preference is always for the slow dried. But as gam and GW rightly highlight, both are 'seasoned', in different ways. Even with 'kiln dried' there are different practices, including the use of microwaves...
# Posted on July 4th 2010 by ceolachan
Re: sound board for concertinas
Sycamore and the maple family are also generally sound woods, not as temperamental as others that can keep moving even years later, as can boxwood, the damned stuff ~ but it is so beautiful, especially English boxwood...
# Posted on July 4th 2010 by ceolachan
Re: sound board for concertinas
This is also why high quality plywoods have been considered in he past, and synthetics like graphite, and might now be in use by certain makers, or being experimented with?
# Posted on July 4th 2010 by ceolachan
Re: sound board for concertinas
"The 'soundboard' needs to be stable, not vibrating. The vibrating and tone producing part is the reed."
Isn't that more or less what GW!!! was saying, c.?
# Posted on July 4th 2010 by CreadurMawnOrganig
Re: sound board for concertinas
Drying and seasoning are two different things. Drying is the reduction of the water content of the wood, seasoning is the reduction of internal stresses.
With air dried wood the two things happen simultaneously - the wood dries slowly enough that it can shrink and warp to reduce the stresses as it dries.
With kiln dried wood you get an effect known as 'case hardening' - the outer layer of wood dries first. As it dries it shrinks and hardens, putting pressure and hence stress into the wetter wood inside.
When you take a large board, and saw it up into little bits for making instruments, kiln dried wood will shrink and warp more than air dried, because there is more residual stress in it. But providing you cut the wood to almost the right size several weeks (or preferably months) before you want to use it, so that the final seasoning is done at that size, then there probably isn't much to choose between the two. Some guitar makers like kilned soundboards for their artificially low moisture content (they know that from that point on, the wood is only going to expand, not contract) Others prefer air dried for its overall greater stability.
When it comes to concertinas (where is the soundboard in a concertina?) you have the difficult situation that the 'rims' have to be stuck on to the plates across the grain on some sides. Wood expands and contracts much more across the grain than along it, so you land up with differential expansion rates, and the thing tries to rip itself apart when the humidity changes. For that reason it is essential to use wood that expands and contracts as little as possible. That means, old, well seasoned wood - whether it was initially dried in a kiln or a sticking shed.
# Posted on July 4th 2010 by skreech
Re: sound board for concertinas
GW!!! ~ if that wasn't clear CMO, was and agreement, not a question. If you need that more clearly ~ yes! Yes! YES!
# Posted on July 4th 2010 by ceolachan
Re: sound board for concertinas
Just so I don't get more shtick using exclamation makrs ~ nice one Skreech...
# Posted on July 4th 2010 by ceolachan
Re: sound board for concertinas
A prized book in my library, recommended ~
"Understanding Wood" by R. Bruce Hoadley, Taunton Press
# Posted on July 4th 2010 by ceolachan
Re: sound board for concertinas
Old well-seasoned wood will change with humidity just the same as new well-seasoned wood, surely? The main thing is to get rid of the stresses before making the instrument - as anyone who has used vacuum-packed wood from a DIY store will know. A small piece of wood will stabilize within a few weeks - maybe even days, after which it is subject only to the normal changes in humidity and temperature.
# Posted on July 4th 2010 by gam
Re: sound board for concertinas
Old wood does still move with humidity, but to a much lesser extent that new wood. Don't ask me why - I would guess that the lignin initially dries, but keeps hardening with age, much as varnish dries when the solvents evaporate, but carries on hardening of a period of time.
# Posted on July 4th 2010 by skreech
Re: sound board for concertinas
Slow 'seasoning' of timber allows things to shrink and move into a form that can then be worked, however that's wanted. With boxwood it can mean several stages over years, you eventually allow it to move where it wants, work it a bit, leave it, work it a bit, leave it. Then, hopefully, somewhere down the line it settles down. Wood that goes through this 'seasoning', allowing it to lose moisture slowly, and to shrink and move, will not react quickly to changes in humidity, but that doesn't mean you don't want a case for a finished instrument and a humidifier. Extremes are extremes, and I've seen a harp completely destroyed after being left out in freezing conditions. Wood that isn't allowed to settle in properly will react more quickly to temperature changes.
As mentioned above by skreech, 'case hardening', akin to bread drying out where the crust gets hard and brittle but the inside can still be soft, such wood is more 'reactive' to changes in temperature and humidity. Another wood difficult to season properly, requiring patience and time, is cocobolo. Some disreputable dealers pull the same trick as these criminals that try to profit from 'free range' and 'organic' items that are bogus, with wood claiming that it is 'air dried', properly seasoned, increases the value. However, as also mentioned, under the microscope the damage to cell walls by kiln drying, especially quick drying, is obvious, exploded cell membranes from the escaping steam, this is true with both hardwoods and softwoods...
# Posted on July 4th 2010 by ceolachan
Re: sound board for concertinas
Yes! ~ to what screech just said...
# Posted on July 4th 2010 by ceolachan
Re: sound board for concertinas
It's a constant learning process I find fascinating. I'm a tree hugger, and also love the products of that growth too ~ timber and the transformation of that into something that makes music... More trees please!!! More forests and jungles and less of this decimation and loss of habitat... I can dream...
# Posted on July 4th 2010 by ceolachan
Re: sound board for concertinas
"exploded cell membranes from the escaping steam" Maybe if you put the timber on a bonfire; but kilns are controlled-environment areas, not furnaces. The timber may actually be of a better quality than that air-dried in variable climates, where sunshine, fog and frost can not be eliminated. The one form of seasoning I would warn against, which thankfully you don't see much these days, is pressure-injection, which relied on the introduction of chemicals to displace the moisture. I would suggest that of more concern should be the grain, or the figure, and the type of wood, rather than how it was seasoned. If it has been lying about the workshop for a while, it will be fine.
# Posted on July 4th 2010 by gam
Re: sound board for concertinas
Yeah, I don't know about lumber yards, but the 'kiln' a lot of tonewood suppliers use isn't really a kiln at all, it's a desiccator - a shipping container hooked up to a very powerful de-humidifier, which dries the wood quickly, but without heating it.
# Posted on July 4th 2010 by skreech
Re: sound board for concertinas
gam ~ the cells are still burst, broken, even in a 'controlled' kiln... Good time based seasoning means a controlled environment, in a sense a 'slow' kiln, but using just basic environmental controls to keep some kind of constant, avoiding, in areas where there is a problem, extreme changes in temperature and humidity, as in places like the Canadian Maritimes...
Having used a microscope on timbers that have experienced different treatment ~ I'm not bullsh*tting, though maybe 'exploded' sounds a bit strong, it damn well looks like that when viewed up close...
# Posted on July 4th 2010 by ceolachan
But if you know otherwise ~ c'est la vie...
# Posted on July 4th 2010 by ceolachan
Re: sound board for concertinas
Yes skreech, as mentioned previously, I know of different methods for drying timbers. I've seen boards of spruces and maples fed into and through long 'heated' kilns, commercial practices, which also work to remove the moisture and humidity in the air, and after a time the timber comes rolling out out the other end and then feeds down a chain where it is graded and stacked accordingly. I remember experiments being done with microwaves, and some commercial companies using large ones. However, it has been sometime since I was anywhere near that kind of carry on so can't say what the state of curing timber is at present.
There have been a few articles on the whole process in various magazines and journals ~ "Fine Woodworking", one I've subscribed to from issue #1, "The Strad", etc., and the journal of the BVMA (British Violin Making Association), as well as other such periodicals concerned with wood for musical instruments.
# Posted on July 4th 2010 by ceolachan
Re: sound board for concertinas
'dessicator' ~ I knew one person that used a bog standard dehumidifier...
# Posted on July 4th 2010 by ceolachan
Re: sound board for concertinas
Don't talk to me about 'experiments done with microwaves. A few weeks back I put a test slip of Laburnum in the microwave to get an idea of what it would be like when it was dry. I overcooked it, the wood burnt, filled the kitchen with smoke and left a toxic residue all over the inside of the microwave. I still can't heat a burger without everyone in the house getting runny eyes.
# Posted on July 4th 2010 by skreech
Re: sound board for concertinas
I'm not a concertina player, but how exactly does the wood vibrate? Isn't the concertina essentially a harmonica with a bellows? Or does the wood somehow vibrate in addition to the reed? Forgive my ignorance.
If the wood is essentially to hold the reeds, like the comb on the harmonica, then the material itself need only be stable. Multiple tests have confirmed that an independent listener cannot tell the difference between differing harmonica comb materials. (See Harp-L for details.)
I can certainly see that there would be an aesthetic difference. How does the wood in a a concertina contribute to the sound?
# Posted on July 5th 2010 by TaoCat
Re: sound board for concertinas
I guess you missed the other 30 comments in the discussion?
The wood of a concertina soundboard doesn't vibrate - or at least it's not supposed to as it does on a stringed instrument, and its vibrational/resonant impact on a sounding reed is not discernible to the ear.
# Posted on July 5th 2010 by gravelwalks
Re: sound board for concertinas
Ok, so what's the point of wood discussion? Why not an intrinsically more stable material that is moisture resistant? Perhaps I doubled up on the pain meds.....
# Posted on July 5th 2010 by TaoCat
Re: sound board for concertinas
The OP asked about wood, so we were talking about wood.
A manufacturer could use a variety of other materials for every aspect of the construction, not just the soundboard. I mentioned a few in an earlier post, but as I said, some make more sense than others for practical reasons.
The discussion turned to a question of stability - namely that of kiln dried wood versus wood that has been dried in a more 'natural' fashion as by stickers over time. Personally, I believe that if wood has been properly kiln dried (kiln is somewhat of a misnomer, like soundboard in this case) then it has most or sometimes all (depending on a few things) of the attributes of a 'seasoned' piece. As was stated earlier, the stability of kiln lumber can change after it enters its new environment outside the drying chamber. This is why after purchasing, most luthiers and furniture makers allow their lumber to stand in the environoment in which it will be worked or used before beginning to work with it (for me, this means bringing it into the shop and leaving it there for a few weeks where the humidity and temperature is similar to most indoor environments in the area).
Some woods are inherently more stable than others, kiln dried or seasoned. This is why some woods make more sense than others. Another reason we make so many things out of wood when we can use other things is cost. Sycamore is cheap compared to other woods, it is widely available.
Peter Hyde in Australia has been experimenting with alternative materials for his accordions, man-mande and natural, with very interesting results. The people at Taylor Guitars are researching other woods to use for the non-resonant components of their guitars. There is a company in Germany that makes accordions out of carbon fiber. But for the average guy, making concertinas out of wood is easiest and with some species, has little if any drawbacks. It is acceptably stable, inexpensive, and readily available.
# Posted on July 5th 2010 by gravelwalks
Re: sound board for concertinas
Fair enough, and thanks. Sorry for my confusion...
Mandolins are available in carbon fiber as well...http://new-mad.com/
# Posted on July 5th 2010 by TaoCat
Re: sound board for concertinas
And so are guitars, by Ovation and Parker to name but a few.
The need for conservation with regard to constructing things out of wood, various species of tree, the felling of forests etc., is more important than ever. But it's also interesting how disturbing it is to think of ever wanting or needing to purchase a carbon fiber mando or guitar.
It's going to be hard to get us off of wood, mentally anyway.
Fylde has been making instruments from recycled timbers, bank counter mahogany and the slats of whiskey casks. Taylor built a demo instrument out of pallets found next to the company dumpster. There are some other examples floating around. The Musicwood Coalition is trying to get big companies on board to buy only from approved sources.
I certainly would like to see more instruments made from found wood sources. And there are dozens of underutilized species. In Florida where I used to live, they felled thousands of acres of slash pine, pond apple, cypress, lignum vitae, and Dade county pine and it all went straight to the chipper, right there next to the construction site. It would be very nice to have things made form local lumber there, but it's just not a reality in the rush to build more, faster.
# Posted on July 5th 2010 by gravelwalks
Re: sound board for concertinas
My whole house is done out with timber that has been chucked out or - rarely - bought from a demolition yard that specialises in reclaimed materials. The only wood I buy 'new' is that I use occasionally to make violins. although even then I have use reclaimed mahogany and bits of old instruments from junk shops. I am bemused by the building trade's attitude to timber, and have seen lovely wood thrown in a skip because it has some blemish or other that is negligible or can be planed off. If it isn't wormy or rotten, it is usable and -- more to the point -- stable. I know two tree surgeons, and they both put everything through the chipper and leave it on site to rot down rather than re-cycle it. It's a shame.
# Posted on July 5th 2010 by gam