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OLDNICKILBY

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Posts posted by OLDNICKILBY

  1. Why re-invent the wheel ? This is nothing but a wool-gathering of Academics. It reminds me of the Cretins at our Local University who got £500,000 to develop a polymer from Salt Flour and pulverised egg shells.. We offered to mould some for them. I told them that it was hygroscopic and would absorb water from the atmosphere. "O No, you don't know what you are talking about" said the Prof. 48 hours later the mouldings had reverted and had become a gooey blob

  2. I am still of the opinion that the Reed-pan has a far greater influence than spring hardness and temper. Jefferies pans have the annual rings closer than say Lachenal, and are of Sycamore Chidley pans are harder and closer as well. If you have seen the Documentary on Steinway Pianos ,they put tremendous importance on the quality of the sound-board Spruce, and the reed-pan is in effect the sound-board

  3. David
    WOW that's slow even for something from Tazzy. I'll refrain fro repeating two headed Tazzy jokes >That is almost equal to that Chinese pine ( Stonechat ?) that has been identified at 3000 years old. A friend of mine locally has reared thousands of these on petrie dishes by cell culture

  4. David

    Are you sure that the Tazzy Pine has 50 plus rings to the inch. that makes it very slow growing. Could you be confusing the Spring and Summer rings as two rings per year If it is that slow it must compare with some of those odd Gold Field timbers from W A

    Rock Chidley was also a Timber Merchant ( see Chris Flints paper) the Rosewood on his Tina's is of the first order whilst the Sycamore has a very close grain structure with around 15 to 20 rings per inch. Could this be that he was using timber that had grown in the "Little Ice Age " of the mid 18 C. I have half a dozen Chidley's and they all display the same timber quality

  5. As I see it the main problem with OLD Aluminium reed shoes is that old Ally had a Magnesium additive( see Metals in the Service of Man ) This caused it to degrade very rapidly We use a Tooling grade Ally , about 3 000 kg per annum and get fantastic mould life from it. For example a Sanding Block mould we designed and made 30 years ago is still in production and has made over 500,000 parts

    So if modern Ally is used there is no need to worry, but Gawd help you if you buy a Tina with Magnesium Alloy Ally shoes

  6. Whoopee

    At last someone agrees with me. "The Emperor has no clothes"

    Rapid prototyping has its place to prove a principal but for volume production of small simple parts you can't beat Injection Moulding

    We could mould Bellows cards ,with the feathered edge for pence, in a glueable polymer Buttons could be made with an integral spring, think about the switches on your Steering Column. Tooling would be fine in Aluminium, we have Tools that have made in excess of 1,000,000 parts and still in production.

  7. I personally think that this is an utter waste of time. no thermo-plastic has the properties of sound transmittion. It has been tried and it has failed. Hamish Bayne made a reed pan from Acrilyc or P M M A and the sound was as dead as a Dodo or as flat as a Witches Tit.I gave John Townley samples of I X E F to try on Reed Frames and the result was the same. The majority of printers use "Commodity " plastics. There are a few that can print with Carbon Fibre that might be a little better, but I have my doubts Timber is great for making acoustic Instruments , plastic is not.

    I know a bit about Plastics as I have been involved since 1963 and I am still involved at 78 with 25,000 square feet and 25 injection moulding machines and a full Tool Room

    It may be worth looking at lever arms in Acetal with an integral spring and may be buttons But glueing pads to Acetal is problematic

    Bellows could be a possibility but the Tooling would be an utter Nightmare

  8. I remember being at the Frankfurt Toy Fair about 16 years ago and seeing a very skilled Melodeon player, there was something not quite right about his style. I returned and realised that he was not actually playing. He explained the machine to me "Micro process control " . It was at that point when I saw the ultimate nightmare of being in a Session and someone calling out "Number 69 on the pink stick " and then a host of pumping Melodeons belting out the same cacophony AAGH

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