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Hey everyone....
I don't know if this would be possible or not but....
If you heat a PVC tube...doesn't it get soft/flexible....?
sooooo....couldn't you create a tapered mandrel.....(kinda like a pool cue)....get a piece of PVC tubing....just the size of the "choke point" (smallest diameter)
heat the pvc tubing and jam the mandrel down the tube to enlarge the rest of the pipe to the "correct" taper. I know that you'd have to do the same at the bottom end of the flute. but....it should work.... hmmm? does anyone have any experience with doing this? if so....did it work?
i've seen some people who taper the bore by "squeezing" the tube to make it smaller....but i'm just hypothesizing that you'd have more control if you "enlarged" a smaller tube.
whaddya think?
Jacques
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Reshaping PVC tubes with heat... It works pretty well. I've done it with a gas stove and different diameters and tapers of glass bottles to make a tapered wide-mouth PVC tube.
Funny PVC property #1... deform the tube with heat and let it cool into the new shape (you'll probably have to leave the form in place). Remove the form and heat it again... watch it morph back into its original cylindrical shape! Could be either useful or undesirable.
Funny PVC property #2... it's broadly accepted that burning PVC releases dioxins. How much is debated. No consensus on whether just heating it up enough to bend it releases the nasties. But burning does, and dioxins are among the most evil organic chemical compounds you'd want to encounter. They bioaccumulate and they're responsible for birth defects, genetic disruptions, and cancer. Just something to maybe keep in mind. (BTW, I don't think anyone suggests that simply cutting and drilling PVC releases significant dioxins.)
-Darren.
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Another idea:
IF we have a bamboo a little larger than some measure specifications that we have from a very fine flute, we can make a "guide tube" to insert into the bamboo and then fulfill with ji or a substitute the empty spaces . Making this the holes will stay in the exact place showed in the original flute measurements and theoretically the main factors that will change in this approach will be the deepness of the holes and the mouthpiece itself...
But, actually I never made that... Just a mind trip...
Peace.
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Musgo da Pedra wrote:
Another idea:
IF we have a bamboo a little larger than some measure specifications that we have from a very fine flute, we can make a "guide tube" to insert into the bamboo and then fulfill with ji or a substitute the empty spaces . Making this the holes will stay in the exact place showed in the original flute measurements and theoretically the main factors that will change in this approach will be the deepness of the holes and the mouthpiece itself...
But, actually I never made that... Just a mind trip...
Peace.
That's just what Monty Levenson (and a few others) have been doing with his flutes for about 20 years now.
He calls it 'Precision Cast Bore'.
http://www.shakuhachi.com/Q-PCBStory.html
eB
Last edited by edosan (2008-01-16 10:36:53)
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edosan wrote:
Musgo da Pedra wrote:
That's just what Monty Levenson (and a few others) have been doing with his flutes for about 20 years now.
He calls it 'Precision Cast Bore'.
http://www.shakuhachi.com/Q-PCBStory.html
eB
Hi...
Very nice to know this information... I have seen some pictures on Monty's book Stalking the Wild Bore and was asking me if the PVC tube was serving to this purpose (as gauge). I'm happy to know that it is to use as gauge...
Talking about the practice, the craft part, if it works fine, and we have a piece of bamboo that have some good balance of aesthetics, with some workable gauges, coloration , nodes configuration and of every desired thing, why we make a PVC shakuhachi instead of make a bamboo one (being this jiari or jinashi or a middle term)?
Probably shortage of bamboo , of time or laziness...
I thank's to the great souls who help the humanity to capture those kind of ideas from the air, especially talking in shakuhachi crafting (to me at least) about the maker who was the first source of safe information from which I had access, the well known Monty Levenson...
Any doubt about the way, ask for the living mushrooms of the fields... If they show their head, you will get the answer...
Peace...
Last edited by Musgo da Pedra (2008-01-16 21:10:46)
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I made something wrong above here...
Excuse this late mind in the world of the electronic ones.
: {p
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I have a PVC shakuhachi made by Kurita Masami of Ibaraki Prefecture. It's fairly high tech for being made from pipe material.
He hasn't tapered the bore, but he has heated the tube and pinched it just a bit below the lowest hole and on the back side of the flute. There's also come carving inside the tube and a bit of a flare out (heated) at the end.
It's a pretty decent player. His version of shaping the bore...
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He makes really excellent PVC flutes, even the color is nice; a beautiful reddish brown, and fine workmanship.
He has been refining the jiari (bamboo) flute he's made for about the last ten years, I think.
eB
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Hola Henrique!
Musgo da Pedra wrote:
...
Any doubt about the way, ask for the living mushrooms of the fields... If they show their head, you will get the answer...
Peace...
Is this from Carlos Castaneda? Those interested in practicing his technique of lucid dreaming will also find many answers.
Yes, peace my friend, Perry
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what exactly is his technique for Lucid Dreaming Perry? I have never found one that worked too well for me.
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Hi Lorka,
Lorka wrote:
what exactly is his technique for Lucid Dreaming Perry?
Carlos Castenada's technique is to look to the back of your hands as way to hang onto the lucid state while dreaming. This means that you should have prepared yourself in the myriad of ways before bedtime. Then, once there you look to the back of your hands as a reminder of the waking world. Those who can enter this state usually can not remain lucid for too long because it's such a fantastical world and it's easy to get involved and go back into being a part of the dream as opposed to observing. Having your hands in front of you reminds you that you are dreaming.
I have never found one that worked too well for me.
It's very much like shakuhachi playing. It is an esoteric practice with strange exercises. One has to tell him/herself in waking life that looking at the back of the hands means a dream state otherwise it won't compute during a dream.
The more you do it, the better you get at it. Obviously, there are many ways to approach it and I use a combination of techniques. If you haven't read them yet, look for The Art of Dreaming and Creative Dreaming. These are great books for dreamers.
Sorry to high jack the tread. We can move this conversation to the non-shakuhachi section.
Good luck, Perry
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Hi Perry,
Thanks for the info. I may email you for more info some time soon, rather than hijack the forum with non shakuhachi related stuff.
I read the first Castenada book years ago, but I will check out the one you mentioned. One of your books you mentioned is not by him, so I am not sure who the author may be.
Thanks
Matt
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hey man!
Ive got a few pvc Shakuhachi that i made using a similar bore technique to the one your describing. The only difference is i take a 3/4 dowl and layer it with so soft tape untill it fits tite into the bottom of the shakuhachi! ok, then i slowly heat the pvc in the area i want to warp at the bottom of the shaku, now when it gets warm enough to make the dowl dip its ready to pull....''Hold the shaku front side up one hand on the dowl and one hand on the shaku and pull with even tention..then stop and hold it still where you want it to stay(if you hold it wright you can blow on it to cool it faster) and as it hardens kick the bottom out a bit,using the dowl for leverage! Wow that was a run-on! anyhoo ''i hope i got that out right and i works for ya. I just made my first bamboo Shaku's a couple days ago and im glad i started on pvc boy let me tell yah what!
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I don't know if it has been mentioned here before, but much of what I have learned about making shakuhachi, and PVC shakuhachi in particular, came from here:
http://www.navaching.com/shaku/shakuindex.html
Lots of good info there. He has a lot of tapered bore and other interesting bore experiments. One day I'll start making bamboo shakuhachi...
-Kyle
Last edited by emptyvessel (2008-04-29 13:10:56)
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I have been checking that website out for a few days now. I've made two shakuhachi. One is based on the diagram in Yung's book, and the other is based on teh EAR 30 model from that website. I haven't tried my hand at tapering yet. I would need to get a heat gun and am trying to hold off on expenses at the moment.
I wondered if anyone has tried tapering by inserting material. That website has a cool idea for inserting dowels and other things. I considered inserting thinner PVC (They have stuff hear in FL that is good for sprinkler systems but not considered suitable for potable plumbing) into the lower end of the shakuhachi and using a cap. I wondered if anyone knew of pitfalls in this method.
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In the Irish flute world, makers have been making tapered bore flutes from Delrin or other polymer rods. The rods are drilled out and turned on a lathe for the outside profile and reamed for the bore profile. This is very similar to what David Brown probably does making his wooden Shakuhachi.
The rod stock is not particularly cheap, and the labor is roughly equal to making a wooden flute so these are not necessarily budget model flutes. The resulting flutes can be very very good players. The labor is probably significantly less than the custom bore work required for a bamboo shakuhachi and the resulting flute is extremely durable.
www.forbesflutes.com is one such maker Desi Serry and Michael Cronoly are two others.
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