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From:
Owen Daly Harpsichords <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Harpsichords and Related Topics <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Thu, 6 Apr 2017 07:15:41 -0700
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Boris, what Anne said.

What people need to realize is that Stephen’s endeavor is a two-pronged one. In addition to being allied to our musical/instrumental interests, Stephen is researching these materials as part of his “day job” being a scientist who teaches, inter alia, things like materials science and engineering, and all of the research into historical metallurgy will eventually be formally published. Those of us who have been inside the academic establishment know that this is an environment in which promiscuous or premature dissemination of research can be fatal.

Especially while things are in the exploratory stages, and all kinds of new information (or, from OUR practical point of view, new failures and successes) are still forthcoming, publication of technical data, and arguments defending technical and practical procedures, will remain prvilieged, and should do so.

All of us were fortunate, in the case of research into verifiably historical ferrous music wire, that the groundwork had already been laid by Martha Goodway and Scott Odell back in, I think it was, the 1980s. The statistically high proportion of an iron alloy containing from trace to zero-detectable carbon, and quite high levels of Phosphorus was already established at that point in the game. With copper alloys, however, and with the methods with which they were worked in practice, we are to some extent still at the Goodway-Odell stage. There have been test batches of yellow and red brass, in very small amounts, for which a few of us, including Michael Johnson and yours truly, have been fortunate enough to serve as guinea pigs. I’ve done one iron-scaled instrument with the brass area strung in such test-batch wire, as has Michael, and initial reports from us were very positive. And I was fortunate enough to get a batch with smaller gauges that allowed me to string a big all-brass Italian in it. But although our positive reports are somewhat helpful, I imagine, they do not constitute very meaningful data either regarding the true historical status of the material or the ultimate reproducibility of the manufacturing process.

owen


> On Apr 5, 2017, at 9:00 PM, HPSCHD-L automatic digest system <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
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> Curious, 
> BM 
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