Here’s my advice, as someone who has made hundreds of pretty decent recorders, and who has done repair, restoration, and other work on hundreds more recorders produced by other makers from around the world: Avoid all wax impregnated Recorders - you can force wax into wood, but it always finds a way to come out, particularly when the temperature rises much above normal room temperature. Once the wax starts coming out of those wax impregnated instruments, they become a complete mess
Besides, makers only need to use wax when they use inferior wood, and/or poor quality workmanship.
If the instrument is going to be traveling a lot, or exposed to the outdoors and/or extreme conditions for any length of time, go plastic. Yamaha and Zen-On both make very good plastic recorders.
You obviously are very experienced and I don’t claim to know a lot about all this. However, I do wonder about wax impregnation and heat though. It regularly goes above 40 C here in the summer (104F) and hasn’t messed up our Mollenhauers and we don’t have air conditioning. These wax impregnated fruit wood recorders certainly don’t appear to be poorly made or of inferior wood but I am definitely an amateur. Maybe they use secret ingredients. In India we used to buy chocolate that didn’t melt in the heat
Yes, the newer Mollenhauers are more stable, with Moecks, for example, being less so. Still, there is a temperature at which any wax impregnated instrument starts to have problems, and I have seen it many times. Does it really get to 104F inside your house for long periods of time sounds uncomfortable! Actually, I wouldn’t expect a modern wax impregnated recorder to start oozing wax at 104F, usually it’s when a recorder is left in an attic or car, where the temperatures can get a good 20 or more degrees hotter that the trouble starts. Usually people don’t leave their prized intruments in a car trunk/boot all day during the middle of summer, but it only takes one time… I could see potential problems with taking a wax impregnated instrument camping, as there is occasionally a circumstance where portions of your backpack might get quite hot for long periods of time, but I must say that I’ve never heard any first hand reports of this, so who knows, might work out just fine 99% of the time.
On the other hand, a good plastic recorder is still more durable and maintenance free in both the short and long runs, so for outdoor activities, those would still be what I’d suggest.
Just as a note, I contacted Mollenhauer with the same question, and they actually SUGGESTED the Modern Soprano. Not only that, they suggested the Pearwood version, by nature of its wax impregnation. I thought that was interesting. Thanks again for all of the help!
sounds uncomfortable! Actually, I wouldn’t expect a modern wax impregnated recorder to start oozing wax at 104F, usually it’s when a recorder is left in an attic or car, where the temperatures can get a good 20 or more degrees hotter that the trouble starts. Usually people don’t leave their prized intruments in a car trunk/boot all day during the middle of summer, but it only takes one time… I could see potential problems with taking a wax impregnated instrument camping, as there is occasionally a circumstance where portions of your backpack might get quite hot for long periods of time, but I must say that I’ve never heard any first hand reports of this, so who knows, might work out just fine 99% of the time.