This is my immersion oiling tube, filled with oil. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
I mean, I guess there aren't many like it, but there are surely a few out there.
What's an immersion oiling tube for, one might ask? It's for oiling the wood of an instrument when it's fully disassembled. The tube lets you dunk the instrument in and get it fully covered with oil, which can then be absorbed into the wood. Once I level and dress the tone holes on the english horn, I'll oil it and let it sit a few more days before doing final key fitting and padding. That's still a few days away, though.
There's a good deal of debate about the process of oiling wooden instruments, including questions about whether it's even necessary, and a lot of differing opinions on what kind of oil is best. To start from the beginning, though, there are reasons for oiling, whether you think it should be done weekly or only once in the life of an instrument. Wood starts as a living thing that either absorbs water or expels it depending on atmospheric conditions. Once the wood is felled, processed, and turned into a musical instrument, it still interacts with the humidity in the air. A piece of wood that's allowed to remain in a very humid environment soaks up a lot of moisture and can develop things like rot, mold, or fungus. On the other hand a piece of wood left in a dry environment for years will eventually give off most of its moisture and dry out. Dry wood is more brittle than humidified wood, so it's more prone to chipping and cracking. A very dry instrument that's suddenly subjected to a rush of warm, moist air from a player's lungs will start to absorb that moisture quickly, causing the bore to rapidly expand while the outside wall is still dry. It isn't hard to imagine how a crack can develop in that situation. By the same token, if a piece of wood suddenly absorbs a lot of moisture from the air, there's no way of telling what other things might come with it, like bacteria, mold, or any number of other kinds of funk. Therefore it's in the player's best interested to
Musical instruments are regularly subjected to pretty severe changes in humidity, not only from the infusion of moist air from the act of playing, but also from the different locations a musician might use their instrument and the seasonal changes in humidity that happen in many parts of the world. Oiling helps slow the wood's reaction to these rapid changes, which prevents it from expanding or contracting too quickly. The oil fills voids in the wood, coats the individual cells, and creates a semi-permeable barrier for moisture to pass through, which it does at a gradual pace. This has the double advantage of preventing rapid expansion or contraction of the bore which can cause cracks, and minimizing the absorption of water vapor that may carry bacteria, mold, or some other kind of "funk."
Of course in order for the oil to do its job, the wood needs time to absorb it, which can take hours or days depending on how "thirsty" the wood is. Wiping the bore of an instrument with oil and immediately cleaning it out will probably have a negligible effect, as almost zero oil gets absorbed. In fact, the only effect may be that a microscopic layer or oil gets left behind in the bore, which will prevent it from absorbing any moisture for a few days. That's why an instrument should always sit for a few days after a full immersion oiling, and maybe a day or so after oiling the just bore.
So which type of oil is best? The short answer is that I don't know. Most people agree that on grenadilla instruments, hardening oils like linseed or tung oil should be avoided. These oils gradually dry out and leave behind a coating that creates a vapor lock, preventing any moisture from getting to the pores of the wood. As a result, the wood can't respond to changes in humidity. (Ok, it doesn't completely prevent moisture from getting through, but the Berlin Wall didn't completely stop people from crossing the border either. That doesn't mean it didn't slow things down quite a bit.) Another type of oil most people like to avoid are the commercially available bore oils available from some music retailers. These are usually petroleum based oils, particularly mineral oil. Mineral oil doesn't seem to be terrible for the wood, although it is toxic if ingested. From what I understand the main downside is that mineral oil doesn't contain the right fatty acids to be able to polymerize, so it doesn't stick around very long and doesn't really nourish the wood.
That leaves fruit/vegetable and nut oils. Fruit and vegetable oils are practically non-hardening, especially in the small amounts that would be distributed through the wood of an instrument, so that's a strong point in their favor. They can go rancid over time, but that assumes a standing amount of oil over a long period, so the risk of the oil in an instrument spoiling is minimal, and can be further reduced by adding antioxidants to the oil.
But even having narrowed down our list to these oils, there are still a myriad of options, and very little agreement on what is best. Olive oil and almond oil are both popular, but have their drawbacks. Olive oil can contain a lot of chlorophyll, which of course reacts with sunlight, and in this case can cause the oil to oxidize and go rancid. This can be minimized by using a golden colored extra virgin olive oil, which comes from riper olives that contain less chlorophyll. That still doesn't eliminate the possibility of oxidation, though. Almond oil, on the other hand, is difficult to find in a pure form because of the way it's extracted and processed. Those factors and other concerns mean that even these two popular oils have many detractors. I can't tell which is best, though I'd note two of the most popular products: Bore Doctor from Doctor's Products is thoroughly researched and developed by a chemist, Dr. Omar Henderson, and he is active in promoting the science behind his products, including its antioxidant and disinfecting properties. Naylor's Bore Oil is also a popular formulation, developed by Larry Naylor, a prominent veteran instrument repair technician. Both have strong following among repair techs. The formula I've personally started using in my immersion tube is one shared by Jeff Dening, and well-respected technician now working in Baltimore, and includes a couple different vegetable oils along with an anti-oxidant. In a year, though, I may be using something different, and a year after that something different again. I haven't firmly planted my flag in any camp yet.
Even after you can choose an oil, there's still the matter of deciding how to apply it and when. I oil an instrument if I'm overhauling it, after I've cleaned it and allowed it to humidify a little bit. Using the tube, I immerse it in oil to thoroughly coat every surface, then allow it a few days to absorb what remains on the surface. If it looks dry after that I'll oil it again. I don't go crazy with bore oiling as a regular maintenance practice, though. I do the immersion oiling after cleaning based on the fact that I've just washed the instrument a sucked a lot of oil out of it. The immersion process replenishes what I've taken out. Bore oiling is aimed more at nourishing the wood and hydrating it to prevent cracks. There's probably something to the idea that nourishing the wood with oil will prevent the wood fibers from breaking down over years of use, but the idea that oiling prevents cracking on an instrument that gets regular use is less convincing. If you haven't played an instrument in weeks, months, or years, and are planning to pick it up again, an oiling would probably be beneficial. The same if you're traveling with it to a place with a different climate. But if you're playing in the same locale on a regular basis, chances are your instrument isn't suddenly going to suck up a huge amount of moisture and split open one day when you pick it up to play.
If you are going to oil an instrument's bore regularly, it should be when the bore is clean and dry, and when it will have enough time to absorb the oil before you play it again.
I still have a lot to learn about oiling, but there is a wealth of information out there for those of us who don't have the wherewithal to do our own research or analysis. A few I've found helpful are:
http://www.shwoodwind.co.uk/HandyHints/oilingbore.htm
http://members.iinet.net.au/~nickl/wood.html
http://www.naylors-woodwind-repair.com/Publications/life-everlasting-for-a-good-clarinet
http://www.naylors-woodwind-repair.com/Publications/deterioration-of-grenadilla-instruments
http://test.woodwind.org/clarinet/BBoard/read.html?f=1&i=45168&t=45154
http://test.woodwind.org/clarinet/BBoard/read.html?f=1&i=92507&t=92393
Both threads from the Clarinet BBoard contain a lot of information from Dr. Omar Henderson
No comments:
Post a Comment