Terry McGee wrote:Phenolic resins. Vacuum impregnations. Acrylics. Young people these days, I don't know....
Nah, good on youse. The 19th century was great, but we must be getting close to time to move on...
I apologize for the fact I've responded at tedious length, but this thread brought up a lot of thoughts I've been having about traditional ways of making instruments versus modern machinery. Apologies to PB+J, as this isn't a thread derailment so much as a thread apocalypse.
Like a lot of people my age I struggle to find a balance between digital/high tech stuff, and interpersonal/traditional stuff ("stuff" being a placeholder for anything from manufacturing techniques to correspondence). For me that means writing physical letters when thanking someone / acknowledging an event, trying not to be on my phone too much, and patronizing businesses in person wherever feasible, rather than ordering delivery or online.
This also extends to my instrument making with regard to preferring synthetic vs natural materials. I deeply respect and admire the techniques and skill that go into making an instrument out of wood, cane, or other natural materials like leather. Instruments made this way have an authenticity about them, and (if they sound good) carry with them the hand of a master craftsperson.
However, I would have to wait a long time to be able to do that. My formerly-sleepy hometown has rapidly become one of the most expensive cities in the US, and because of that, I live in a small apartment and work a demanding 9-5 to pay for it. My workshop size is limited to "whatever fits on my kitchen table." I don't really have access to a lot of the woodworking classes, equipment, or affordable places to use either. Perhaps it's my generation's ceaseless cry of "NOW!" or my growing suspicion that I will die of radiation poisoning rather than "buried in bagpipe avalanche at 91," but I don't want to wait to try out some of my designs. I'm really a player, more than a maker. I make things out of a desire to play more and better music.
So I try to focus on what I do have. What I do have is an ex-Boeing facility "Makerspace" full of high-tech sh*t, and a negotiated trade-of-services with the manager so I can actually afford to use the machinery. I learned to use 3D modelling to keep track of my designs, and from there it's relatively easy to automate some of the more difficult bits of making the pieces. There are still things that must be hand-finished now and then, but it's confined to what I can do with a dremel and needle files at my kitchen table. It's thanks to 3D modeling I can realize some of my best ideas now, which would have remained in my head or on paper for years.
I see automating the consistency of the designs as a way of empowering the ideas themselves, not hindered by my lack of ability. This brings us back to synthetic materials. They're just more consistent than natural ones, and that consistency allows me to assess whether the idea itself is any good, not the execution of same. Looking to the future, we now have ways (often not used commercially, but ways exist) to produce most types of carbon compounds for resins and acrylics, or materials imitating their properties, through biochemical means or less toxic processes. It's not as cost-effective as a cracking column, but it requires no petroleum-based feedstock. If our civilization avoids collapse and begins prioritizing sustaining a habitable atmosphere, these resins or products like them are still going to be around due to their use in other areas. Suitable (or indeed, affordable) tonewood may not.
However, I can't shake the lingering feeling that all this is somehow "cheating," and that the instruments may "be of my head, but not of my hands," which I feel remains part of the tradition. Perhaps the first thing flute players do when meeting each other is talk about the origins of their flutes, who made them and when, and who owned them previously. There's a few players whom I greatly respect on my waiting list, and I wonder whether they'll think about my instrument as a neat trick, or a skillful piece.
3D modelling and automated manufacturing has certainly empowered people to collaborate from across the world (indeed - I have a copy of the Rostock chanter, the earliest pipe chanter ever discovered intact, sitting on my hard drive right now), share knowledge, and find solutions. I'd still rather be apprenticing to Mattis Branschke or Julian Goodacre, and hell, maybe I'll get that opportunity someday. But for now, 3D will have to do.
"tedious length" is now my stripper name