| The same Oak Ridge technology and skills developed for
producing nuclear weapons components are helping Crafters of Tennessee
produce banjos that pickers say ring true to their heritage.
The key is the banjo tone ring, which secures the head
across the frame of the banjo to create the sound chamber and produce the
instrument's distinctive ringing sound. Crafters of Tennessee wanted to
recreate the precise, bell-like sound of pre-World War II banjos, but needed
some technical expertise in metallurgy and precision machining to accomplish
the task.
The company provided a sample tone ring design to the
Y-12 National Security Complex for machining from a specific metal alloy. The piece
was then tested and the metal evaluated to compare its composition with
a pre-war alloy. After prototypes of the ring were machined, they underwent
an ultrasound spectrum analysis to test the harmonics.
The resulting Tennessee 20 ring has what Mark Taylor of
Crafters of Tennessee calls the "Y-12 dinner bell recurved tone chamber,"
a machined configuration that gives it a tonal quality superior to other
tone rings against which it has been tested. |
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Taylor says that the Tennessee 20 ring produces clear, sustained
tonal quality and maintains the power and clarity of its sound through
all the ranges of the fingerboard. "It creates a really pure note that's
as clear as a piano and without overtones," Taylor said. The tone rings
are now being produced for Taylor's company by a private-sector business.
Technologies used by Oak Ridge in developing the Tennessee
20 ring prototype included:
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precision machining,
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metallurgical analysis, and
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ultrasound spectrum testing.
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