Re: Oiling winds

[Cary Karp <karp@nrm.se>]

Quoting Jim McGill <jim@elseware.com>:

> Given one should oil (which 
> I never really questioned), my concern becomes  polymerizing vs. 
> nonpolymerizing oils. . . . I  have no basis for choosing between 
> them, though my bias is for polymerizing oils as they form a better looking 
> surface. Have conservators that have old winds in their keeping seen long 
> term results of the two types of oils that can give me a rational basis for 
> choosing, or has mineral oil been around too short a period for it's 
> consequences to be known?

I've done quite a bit of looking for evidence of any kind of oil on the
surface of the bores of old woodwinds with no success. Now that I've got
ready access to the instrumentation necessary to do the job properly I no
longer have direct access to the musical instruments. 

In any case, no bore surface of any older wind instrument that I've seen 
shows any sign of having been oiled or polished. The shiny surfaces start 
turning up in the post-boxwood stuff, which is an attribute of the woods 
themselves rather than of any oil treatment.

This not withstanding, I remain convinced that various oil impregnation
treatments were and are a very significant aspect of manufacture although
I doubt that maintenance oiling has much other than a psychological
effect. I've got lots to say on this subject but would first like to root
around in what I've previously written. 

My dream would be to discover that a primary function of the cellulose in
a boxwood or fruitwood instrument is simply to hold the prepolymerized oil
in place, and that the musically relevant material is the polymerized oil
held within that matrix. A pipe dream, as it were, but there is an awful
lot of experimental work which both can and needs to be done before we can
start to speak with objective credibility about the significance of
oiling. 

There is a massive literature about the behavior of drying oils, but 
little of this discusses the low light, high humidity, mechanically 
traumatized conditions that are found inside a woodwind.