Music – Instruments – General features
Patent
1995-07-21
1997-11-11
Gellner, Michael L.
Music
Instruments
General features
524 13, 84380R, G10D 300
Patent
active
056866801
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
The present invention relates to a process for the manufacture of a material intended to constitute a blank of a musical instrument and in particular of a wind instrument such as for example a clarinet or oboe. It also concerns musical instruments and materials adapted to constitute a blank therefor.
In order to produce quality wind instruments, manufacture thereof traditionally makes use of woods constituted by rare essences such as rosewood or more particularly ebony. Such woods are chosen by reason, on the one hand, of their acoustic qualities but also by reason of their solidity and hardness, which render them suitable for undergoing the mechanical machinings necessitated by the fact that they must support the different control mechanisms of the instrument.
At the present time, manufacturers of wind instruments are finding it increasingly difficult to obtain high quality woods, on the one hand, due to the impoverishment of the natural resources and, on the other hand, due to the various legislations governing the distribution of the woods of rare essences.
It has therefore been sought to create substitute materials which may be exploited on an industrial scale and which present the same qualities as the traditional materials from the standpoint of acoustics, mechanical characteristics and outer aspect, both tactile and visual. It has thus been proposed to produce wind instruments in materials such as synthetic resins. This choice made it possible to have available materials of which the various mechanical characteristics such as density, hardness and resilience, were controlled perfectly. Consequently, it was thus proposed to improve both the character of reproducibility of the material used and its cost price, at the same time. Unfortunately, due to the low acoustic qualities of the wind instruments thus obtained, the latter hays been reserved for minor uses, so that high quality instruments are still manufactured at present in traditional materials.
It is also known that, in traditional instrument-making, and despite the cost and difficulties in supply of woods of rare essences, only about twenty per cent of the basic material constituting the blank are used, the remaining eighty per cent being eliminated in the form of chips or various waste.
Furthermore, although the traditional wind instruments present an excellent resistance to longitudinal stresses, this, unfortunately, does not apply to the transverse stresses and these same instruments are then extremely fragile.
It is an object of the present invention to overcome these drawbacks by proposing a process for producing a material from which musical instruments and in particular wind instruments may be manufactured, in totally traditional manner, which present acoustic qualities quite comparable to those of traditional, very high quality instruments, this process using, as basic material, what usually constitutes the machining waste of traditional instruments. Moreover, this process proposes to improve, in particularly noteworthy manner, the resistance to transverse mechanical stresses undergone by the instrument.
The present invention thus has for its object a process for the manufacture of a material intended for producing a musical instrument and particularly a wind instrument, characterized in that it comprises the steps consisting in:
--making a powder constituted by at least one type of wood,
--incorporating in said wood powder discontinuous fibers and particularly short fibers, these fibers being chosen so that, by playing on their nature and quantity, the modulus of elasticity of the material is adjusted to the value desired for the instrument,
--disposing the mixture of wood powder and fibers thus obtained in a mould where it is heated to a sufficient temperature to melt the natural resins contained in the wood, while maintaining it under a pressure included between 50.10.sup.5 Pa and 700.10.sup.5 Pa as a function of the density which it is desired to obtain for the instrument,
--cooling the mixture, maintaining said pressure at least du
REFERENCES:
patent: 4244847 (1981-01-01), Posiviata et al.
patent: 4672006 (1987-06-01), McGraw
patent: 4969381 (1990-11-01), Decker, Jr. et al.
patent: 5171616 (1992-12-01), Dejima
Gellner Michael L.
Hsieh Shih-yung
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