Keeping out moisture

[Vautex]

Ok this question is really my other question about a didgeridoo, only disguised. The reason being, the fact that its a didge a not a table or chair might put people off in terms of how to deal with it but it basically come down to this.....

I need to keep the moisture out to stop it cracking.

How should I do this in the easiest and cheapest manner. I dont know much about whats available and I live in a unit so it has to easy to do (yes I know Im making life hard for myself).

Here were some on the many thoughts Ive had.

1) Oil it inside and out (tung oil or danish oil...dunno...slush it inside and then drain I guess)
2) Shellac inside and out
3) Shellac outside, tung inside (pun intended)
4) 2 pack estapol as a last, and I mean last resort. The beauty of a didge to me is how close to being natural it is. Fancy and instrument that, short of stripping and sanding, occured totally in nature by itself.........then I cover it in bloody plastic. At least shellac and oil is natural.

Also I would like it to be low maintenace ie not have to oil it again and again.

Can I oil it first then apply shellac.

Im really lost on this and I need it finished by christmas so if anyone can help Id appreciate it.

[jur]

If it were me, I would get an Organoil product eg Hard Burnishing Oil, Woodsheen or one of those and saturate it with the oil.

Why?

1. The oil wil retard the movement of moisture, not as good as varnish, but still.

2. Organoil smells literally delicious, like orange due to inclusion of orange oil, and tung oil also smells good, unlike linseed oil which stinks. A good smell on a piece of wood which is held close to the olfactory end of your body is important. Once the orange smell is all gone, the tung smell will persist for a long long time.

3. The finish will not look like it is a skin of plastic, but rather it will penetrate the wood and harden inside the outer layer of the wood, becoming part of the wood. A great natural look. It will be matt unless you burnish it to a satin sheen. If you wet sand it, the grain will darken beautifully due to wood dust slurry getting lodged in the grain.

4. You can give a small bottle of the Organoil along with the didge to the recipient, with instructions to re-oil occasionally, especially when the inside looks dry, ensuring it stays resistant against moisture movement. The nice smell will probably result in too much oil being applied by the owner rather than none at all.

5. Food safe - very important.

6. The easiest finish to do in a unit - no mess, no fuss. A natural finish that the future owner can also apply with equal ease and not worry about the safety. You could soak a sponge in the oil and pull it through the inside with a piece of string. Then squeeze the oil out of the sponge, allow the oil to penetrate the inside surface, and pull the sponge through again to mop up any excess.

You could also achieve much of the above by applying Rustin's or Organoil's Danish Oil, but have a little more durable result. The inside would still be better off by getting saturated with oil.

When you apply oil on the outside, after the wood soaking up the oil, be sure to wipe off any excess or it will polymerise as a skin which may look good but not be very resistant to scratches.

Edit: I play the recorder, and these have to be oiled on the inside from time to time to prevent cracking. No different with the didge - occasional re-oiling on the inside will be wise, due to the moist air getting blown through it. There is a lot of moisture on expelled beath.

[echnidna]

if you want to waterproof it use poly - even single pack is good enough.
NONE of the arty farty finishes are waterproof enough for a woodwind instrument!

[Vautex]

Thanx JUR. I will still be in possession of it as it is for my girlfriend. She has become very interested in playing too. She's been begging me to get another one and I keep putting it off. She keeps wondering why...well its coz Ive been buying and working on this in secret hee hee hee.

I have heard the Estapol 7008 has a not so good finish but I am still in two minds. Anyway thanks for your help so far.

[Ben from Vic.]

Natural finish for a didgredoo?







Got to be goanna oil.

Just get him to crawl through the inside a few times......vola!

[Vautex]

Hey guys, my grandad told me that he has experimented with beeswax as a polish and mentioned this as being waterproof (which makes sense). Its funny I never considered this as I already have beeswax that I make the mouthpiece for the didge with. I think he said he mixed it with gum turps or somethin.

Anyway this got me thinking...can I make my own formula that can be used to penetrate the didgeridoo from the inside. It will have nothin to do with look as I will finish the outside in a different manner.

Could I use a mix of beeswax, tung oil and gum turps for example. I am assuming the solvent is used as a carrier for the oil and wax to penetrate into the wood and then evaporate quickly.

.....or.....

do I even need the turps ie mix tung oil and wax only .....or.... do I even need oil ie mix wax and turps.........hell, maybe I just need the wax on its own, totally melted........clearly im lost here!

I assume (doing a lot of that lately) that using wax will mean less maintenace as one it get in pores of the wood it will stay there. What about parafin wax, any difference, its about the same price i think.

Can anyone tell me if I am way off track or if they foresee any problems here?

Cheers again.

[Toymaker Len]

Natural finish for a didgeridoo ? I imagine that the aborigines used exactly nothing and their didges worked just fine. What makes you think it will crack at all ? Considering that the wood is fairly thin and dry already and since it is hollow it has no internal stress created by different rates of expansion/contraction between inside and outside. So just finish your decoration of the outside and give it a rub over with a rag and a bit of furniture polish. Presto ! the finished article, good for the next hundred years.

[Shane Watson]

Have to agree with Len. All the traditional doos that I have seen have no finish as such. The timber is already dry as they source tree limbs that have died and been eating hollow by termites. The outside is then smoothed and decorated. THen theres that whole blow and breath at the same time thing which still has me baffled whenever I get on the end of the vacumm cleaner pipe!

[Vautex]

Sorry guys thats not the case at all!! Please bear with me.

Oh, what make me think itll crack at all......my first one did a week after I got it. When they crack they are useless to play unless you can fiz em up.

The aboriginal culture is clearly very different from ours so lets not start comparing ways and means here.......ok wait I will say a few things.

First off though, do you know what a didgeridoo costs these days, coz I paid $350 for my first one. I took weeks to find coz most people just sell **** and rip you off. Most are sold to tourists and suck (or should that be blow) as an instrument and the didge is a real musical intrument.
Its all cut green as there aint enough seasoned logs lying on the ground for this lucrative business. The trees are still standing and living and breathing while the termites have eaten out the guts (therefoe green, no?). People come along and dont even find a suitable tree, rather chop down everything in sight effectively raping and killing off thousands of trees. A lot of these can never be used. Dont believe....do some research. THIS HAS TO STOP!!!!

Ok, now about the aboriginals. If it breaks they dont care. They try fix it till it cant be fixed no more then cut another. They will also store them in water until they are req. Also living in a tropical area (almost, Arnhem land) they dont have the same swing in humidity and temperature I think.

The fact thats it is thin and green is where the problem is from my understanding but then I dont know much. Just think though that moisture is constantly going into the didge while you play via your breath (and even spit...gross man). Surely this make the inside expand different to the outside causing it to crack under pressure.

If anyone can explain it better id love to hear it, however, IT WILL CRACK and the one in question im talking about already has a hairline crack at the mouthpiece. So all in all I wouldnt have asked if it wasnt a problem.

Ok, back to square one. HELP ME PLEASE.

[Shane Watson]

So what your saying is that your using green timber? If so forget it, it will crack and nothing will stop it. You could wax it but that would surely impede the sound resonation (sp?) cause you need to use a lot of wax to get a good seal, look how they store timber turning blanks.

Didn't the aboriginals in Tassi use doo's? Or is it just in the culture of the NT tribes? Cause i'm the first to admit I nothing on this subject as I'm a kiwi...

If your really concerned, what would probably be the best solution is to imerse the whole thing in a thinned shellac. Its probably the best timber sealer in the world and natural, but do not think for a second that any finish is completely 'water proof' or 'moisture resistant' if the timber is going to crack under seasonal changes, like you say IT WILL CRACK - find a better bit of timber.

No furniture maker in his right mind will use green timber and expect that the finish will stop it from seasonal changes or drying out.

Oil is in my opinion a waste of time and will aid the cracking, as it drys out it will help the timber dry out as well so constant re-application is a given.

In short if a piece of timber wants to crack, nothings going to stop it. Trees lift buiding foundations a little bit of bug poo ain't going to stop it.....

[Harry72]

Could you wrap some sort of metal banding around the didge to physicaly stop it from moving?
Like some wire looped around it in a spiral pattern for the whole lenght...

[soundman]

a couple of thaughts.
Black felas arent too precious about most things if they can find a way that works they'll use it, addaption is thier thing so in this case tradition I don't recon is a problem.

A lot of the didges ive seen have some sort of mouth piece made of resin or bees wax, otherwise they are a bit rough on the face so that will help with your end grain .

I don't think you are realy looking for waterproof, you just want to stablise the thing.

the tone of the instrument is predominantly set by the shape & length of the air collumn so treating the wood souldn't make too much diff.

I would expect wax to be a reasonable option you could use a variety of methods to get it on, paste wax polish, hot wax, hairdrier & hot wax.....

Your not going to tel me that some smart black fella in the last thousand years hasn't tried to wax his favorite didge. we know they had bees wax, we know they had spinifex resin and they used them extensively for other things.

then even if you do find a crack opens up a bit you can bung it up with some wax unless it gets out of controll.

PC statement..btw the words "black fella" in this post are intended in a respectful manner tone.

If you are into didge try this
take a length of 50mm electrical conduit and a length of 50mm plumbing pipe slip them one inside the other and you have a "slide didge" that can be tuned on the go add a whole extra dimension to the whole thing. there was a white fella playing one every day at expo 88 and I have seen yothu yindi experiment with this.

cheers let us know how you go

[journeyman Mick]

Vautex,
when harvesting it's not neccesary for them to chop down thousands of trees because belting the trunks will tell you whether the termites have hollowed them out.

Shane,
as far aas I know they always use saplings/small trees, never limbs.

Mick

[Vautex]

Journeyman you are right, they dont have to chop the trees down.....but they do. Im not saying they chop down trees untouched by termites but ones that are not "suitably hollowed". Most unfortunately drill holes to check if it is hollow, again, I know this coz mine has one. Aboriginals were smart enought to remove a bit of bark and tap it. They knew the sound of a good tree.

Soundman, you are spot on mate. Most have beeswax as a mouthpiece. Its purpose is for comfort and making the hole the right size, and being plyable, it does a good job. Your right on the other count too, I only want to stabalise it. I dont want to hit cricket balls in the rain with it. It just has to resist moisture from my breath as well as changes in ambient temp eg From my house to me bloody hot car. If I drop it and it cracks...well thats my own dumb ass fault.

The didge was bought from over east without me seeing it in person. I got a photo and a description and thats it. It unfortunately was not to my high expectations and needed modifying. I was told afterwards that he got it on a recent expedition therefore its gotta be green. The sad truth is only a handful of didge makers make good quality "instruments" and take the time to season their wood.

Before picking up the didge about 6 months ago I knew nothing about wood. Now I know next to nothing. Mine cracked within a week of the purchase so I decided to do a lot of research. Im no expert but you take my word on most of what I say about the didge. I was pretty ignorant of most of these facts myself in the beginning. I tend to do my research which is why Im here asking a billion questions.

Hell I might just ask another "What about tung or linseed and kero?"

Anyway it wont affect the sound too much. Even somethin as drastic as a 2 pack resin will only brighten the tone and actually makes a cleaner sound.

next round......

[Vautex]

ok, ill jump the gun on the next round of replies (thanks by the way) coz I just wanna say somethin.

Ive spent a lot of time on this didge. I made a series of custom chisels for the job. Even made some for an air hammer. I then spent hours chiseling it till the sound and feel was right. Then spent hours sanding off the crap was put on it in an act of utterly poor workmanship. You could see a bit of cardboard got stuck to it and was torn off and left furries on it????? DO YOU HAVE NO PRIDE IN YOUR WORK.

Anyway ive had a lot fun so far and would hate to see it all ruined by it cracking and destroying what is likely to be a great quality "instrument". I found a new passion in playing the didge and I reckon I may have found another in making them.

Anywayz I look forward to some more suggestions. Cheers fellas.