My mother-in-law has 121 rectangular pieces of boxwood 13 3/4 in x 1 1/4 in x 1 1/4, from a ruler factory that closed in the US some 40 years ago (the wood is that old). She wants to sell it. I have been on the flute board, and the guys there told me that this size would be more appropriate for whistle making… I had people from the US interested, but the wood would have to be heat treated, which would apparently ruin it… So now, I am looking for some Canadian whistle makers that might be interested in boxwood!
Replying to myself here - ok, I don’t know for sure that heat treatment is a requirement for exporting wood to the US… The wood is very dry (was cut more than 40 years ago). No cracks, still regular… Anybody know about these regulations???
From that website:
Can I bring or send an item made from wood to the U.S.? What if the object has feathers or bone?
“Finished, manufactured, or naturally weathered products including carvings, driftwood, furniture, picture frames, and musical instruments, and plywood are allowed into the U.S.,”
Maybe you could declare the pieces of wood to be rectangular sculptures. Or musical instruments (banging two of them together). Those milled pieces are arguably a manufactured product. I thought that those regs were designed to limit the transport of insects in the bark of the wood.
You could also argue that since the blocks themselves were manufactured in the US to begin with, they aren’t actually being “imported from Canada”, since they aren’t Canadian products at all.
Yes, I am just sending them back home! I have been advised to call them “turning squares”, and it should be ok for customs… Feeling ok about it now. Thank you for your replies!
Closer to home, you could see if A & M Wood Specialty, http://amwoodinc.com/, in Cambridge, would be interested in buying it for resale. Wouldn’t necessarily become whistles, but I’m sure it would find a good home.
Let me know when you settle on a price. I might be interested in some of those turning squares.
FWIW-- Glenn Schultz told me that Boxwood is great to work with (it’s a classic woodwind material for recorders and other early music instruments). However, he told me it’s very prone to warping. For a thicker walled instrument like a recorder or Baroque oboe it’s fine, but a thin walled tube of a whistle can warp. Years later, I came across one of Glenn’s Boxwood A whistles at a shop in Saratoga Springs. It was the owner’s personal whistle but it had been damaged(small crack) and was not playable. Apart from the crack, the whistle had assumed a very distinct curve to the left. I offered to repair it for him for free and that done it played just beautifully-- the warp had no effect at all on the sound.
Yeah, boxwood is spunky However with time, patience and proper measures, one can get it to be fairly well behaved. Thin walled whistles though are a gamble if they are going to live where the humidity swings wildly.
Amelie, once you start making it into something, it absolutely will! I used to be a professional recorder maker, working for a shop that had Boxwood that was about as old as yours. It was harvested from an English Estate that was clearing land 30 years + prior. I would take these aged turning squares (billets) of Boxwood, and turn them round, then bore a pilot hole in the center. These would be left to “rest” for a period of weeks or months. The wood would warp some during this time. We would then turn these pieces round again, bore a bigger hole through them, and let them rest another time. They would warp yet again. Long story shorter, more warpage, more work, and a year or so later we would have finished instruments that were stable. Boxwood is by nature much more prone to movement than most woods, before, during and after production.
I’m curious, are the ends waxed or varnished in any obvious way? Normally this is needed when storing cut wood in order to avoid having the wood develop cracks along its lengthwise internally.
Well, I will pay attention tomorrow when I go take pictures of it… I haven’t notice, but I did not know I had to pay attention to that either! I
Will let you know!
Wood is a dynamic changeable material. It continually adjusts to changes in ambient temperature and humidity. In most cases those changes are too small to notice. Once that wood is made into a thin walled tube, moisture can enter or leave the wood from the inside and outside and the changes intensify. That’s one of the reasons to oil a wooden instrument-- to put oil into the pores of the wood so the influx and egress of moisture is less radical.
Like Loren, I let my whistle blanks “rest” after they’ve been turned to a rough outer diameter and the bore has been drilled. Not to do so is to court disaster.
Boxwood could be a good candidate for resin stabilization when thinking about thin walled designs (which I think about quite often). The question that enters my mind is whether the “banana effect” might take place during the vacuum process. No way to find out other than to try it I suppose.
However with time, patience and proper measures, one can get it to be fairly well behaved. Thin walled whistles though are a gamble if they are going to live where the humidity swings wildly.