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In essence I have always disliked the plant called Pyracantha because it has such long, sharp and strong thorns. My neighbour has a large Pyracantha hedge and we have one plant which refuses to die.

It occurred to me this afternoon that the thorns might work as a gramophone needle and surprisingly they do. The sound level is low but the needles seem to almost self sharpening. They are so tough it is quite difficult to cut them off the plant stems.

I guess that the thorns in March have been 'hardened' over the previous Summer and Winter.

I wouldn't recommend this to any-one as I am no expert and they may break etc and damage something but they seem to work for me so I will continue to use them.

Just an interesting thing I thought.

Very interesting. Also known as "firethorn".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyracantha


We have several varying examples of Flowering Quince, Chaenomeles, in our yard... probably been there for 70-80 years.

Beautiful, prolific, long-lasting flowers, but nasty thorns. I don't think the Quince thorn is strong enough to bear the weight of an acoustic sound-box, though. I have made a very nice jelly from their fruit.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaenomeles


I read somewhere on this forum that one of the organic needles (bamboo fibre?) was hardened by "doping" in gum arabic ?


For humour:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_DptPvj7ts

De Soto Frank wrote:Very interesting. Also known as "firethorn".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyracantha


We have several varying examples of Flowering Quince, Chaenomeles, in our yard... probably been there for 70-80 years.

Beautiful, prolific, long-lasting flowers, but nasty thorns. I don't think the Quince thorn is strong enough to bear the weight of an acoustic sound-box, though. I have made a very nice jelly from their fruit.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaenomeles


I read somewhere on this forum that one of the organic needles (bamboo fibre?) was hardened by "doping" in gum arabic ?


For humour:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_DptPvj7ts

Thank you very much for your reply.

Yes, my fire thorn experiment is going well - I am drying the thorns out and hope that this will increase the sound level. They do stay sharp and usable for quite a few plays.

I have actually recently also started making my own bamboo needles and they are very successful. There appears to be no 'doping' required. They work very well just dried out - nice smooth volume too.

Very nice to hear about some of the plants which you have had for so long. I guess that in England we call jelly 'jam' maybe ?

I really liked the Youtube link - very clever and it made me laugh too !

Thank you again & happy days always !

I tried Pyracantha thorns a few years ago but didn't find them good, but as I'm lucky enough to listen mainly to EMGs I've long since become very fussy indeed about sound quality!

Likewise I've made plenty of bamboo needles with quite good results, but I've yet to hear any newly made which approach the full sound quality of new-old-stock of the best makes (there's a discussion of this going on in a separate thread at the moment).

Orchorsol wrote:I tried Pyracantha thorns a few years ago but didn't find them good, but as I'm lucky enough to listen mainly to EMGs I've long since become very fussy indeed about sound quality!

Likewise I've made plenty of bamboo needles with quite good results, but I've yet to hear any newly made which approach the full sound quality of new-old-stock of the best makes (there's a discussion of this going on in a separate thread at the moment).

Yes, I see what you mean.

I think that the Pyracantha thorns have great potential but need 'treating' in some way to make them more effective. So I will experiment with that.

I haven't tried old stock bamboo needles but believe what you say. I am using bamboo which has dried out in an old greenhouse for the past 20 years or so so maybe this makes a difference ? Maybe not.

Thank you for mentioning the other thread which is very interesting.

I have never attempted to use Pyracantha thorns, but I have the scars to prove that the thorns on a dead branch are harder than those on a living one.

epigramophone wrote:I have never attempted to use Pyracantha thorns, but I have the scars to prove that the thorns on a dead branch are harder than those on a living one.

They are dangerous plants !

Thanks for the tip - I will look out for dead branches then !