Ye of delicate sensibilities, you don’t want to read what follows. Just lightly skip over this post and move on to something less disturbing.
I’ve had a high D that has been sitting in a drawer for some years now. It’s a busker, aluminum head, wooden body. Phil Hardy shipped it to me in packaging that was, shall we say, far too trusting and optimistic. When it arrived, the wooden portion was flattened to the point where it was unplayable.
I contacted him and he was very pleasant and professional about taking a return, and then I … just didn’t. Life, whatever. It was set aside and there it sat, a sad symbol of regret. Back of the drawer wit’cha.
I got curious about it recently, took the head off and blew it and was very impressed, so I tried rounding out the tube. (Avert your eyes, don’t ask what I might have found that fit nicely inside of it.) And now I can get several nice notes, but anything with high pressure is leaking out the cracks.
How round would I have to get this to true it up? Very? or does length have more to do with the tone than the shape?
And if I can get the cracks sealed with glue so it doesn’t leak, would that allow me to play? And if I were to then wrap the outside with thread to reinforce it, would that deaden the sound?
If you get it back to more or less round and seal all the cracks it’ll probably play fine, and the repair could add character to it, so it’s worth doing the job neatly, ideally without sticking any material round the outside. Do you have any photos of it that you could put up somewhere to show the damage?
Wrap the dowel/rod that you were using to make it round again with teflon tape and then you should be able to use your glue of choice to glue everything back together again without it sticking to the rod inside so you can pull it back out again. Cyanoacrylate (ie super glue) that is either thin or medium viscosity should be able to get down into the cracks and help bring it back together again. Epoxy is also very good, but will be trickier to get down into cracks unless you coated all those edges and then put them together. PVA wood glue can work well, just is probably going to be the slowest drying of the lot. You can similarly wrap the outside again with teflon tape and then some cord over that to hold it all taught together as the glue dries. Then just clean it up with some sandpaper/steel wool over the damaged areas and apply whatever your finish of choice is to pretty it up again.
Thank you! The dowel I used was made of [clears throat] brass, so wrapping it with the plumbers’tape should give me just a little tighter fit, assuming I wrap it carefully and uniformly.
I considered superglue, but was concerned that it might be too brittle, and flake away eventually, especially under pressure. My thought was to do it in a series of glue-ups, starting with water-diluted wood glue using a syringe and hypodermic needle so that it would get absorbed by the wood fibers, and then a less-diluted application to fill the gaps.
Time is not a factor. I don’t mind taking the time to do a lasting job.
I messaged Phil Hardy about it, and he responded very quickly. He told me that the tube was made by Ray McManus of Belfast, and suggested reaching out to him.
So. There’s a couple of options. I’ll be starting with your suggestions. Thank you for the response and the encouragement.