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From: Jeff Liebermann <jeffl@cruzio.com>
Newsgroups: sci.electronics.repair
Subject: Re: Twiddlesticks
Date: Fri, 20 Jun 2025 21:11:27 -0700
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On Fri, 20 Jun 2025 18:04:24 +0100, Cursitor Doom <cd@notformail.com>
wrote:
(chomp)

>Final Verdict
>The guy’s claim is technically grounded but overblown. Your sealed
>Paulownia sticks are just as good as plastic or ceramic for practical
>tuning, even at VHF. He’s worrying about a non-issue for your use
>case. Keep rocking those sticks—you’re golden!"

Thanks.  I'm not used to arguing with someone who is polite.  It's
nice, even if it is from a polite AI.

I don't know anything about Paulownia sticks.  So, I do a little
digging:

<https://www.wood-database.com/paulownia/>

"Endgrain: Ring-porous, occasionally semi-ring-porous; 3-5 rows of
very large earlywood pores, large to small latewood pores; tyloses
common; narrow to medium rays visible without lens, normal spacing;
parenchyma winged, lozenge, confluent, and marginal."

Notice the "ring-porous" which means if it's not properly sealed at
the ends, it's going to suck in some water.  The AI mentioned
"properly dried and sealed wood" several times as a requirement for
keeping the water out of the tuning tool.  If you go through all that,
I don't see much of a problem.  If you dry it in some half baked
manner (i.e. toaster oven or microwave oven), I suspect you will have
problems.

Further down the wood-database page:
"Comments: The other Balsa. Paulownia is used in applications where a
lightweight (yet proportionately strong) wood is needed."

Personally, if the wood is as light weight as the article suggests,
it's not going to make a good tuning tool, which should be as hard and
stiff as possible.  I'm trying to visualize how well a rubber tuning
tool might work.  

I've played with Balsa wood making model airplanes.  It's very
lightweight and quite suitable for making things that float or fly.
The light weight comes from large air pockets in the wood.  If
Paulownia is anything like Balsa Wood, it's going to look and act much
like a sponge.  Even if it's "properly dried and sealed", a flimsy
sponge is going to flex, crack and bend, which could ruin the seal.

Yep, looks like balsa wood:
<https://www.wood-database.com/wp-content/uploads/royal-paulownia-endgrain.jpg>

I don't believe the AI's claim that water incursion into the tuning
tool will have very little effect on the tuning.  If you tested it
with de-ionized water, there will probably be very little detuning.
However, real world conditions aren't very clean.  There will be all
kinds of potential contaminants available to cause some detuning.
Exactly which contaminants and how much detuning they'll produce, I
don't know.  I could probably build and test a Paulownia tuning tool,
but I won't have the time.  I'm going for some surgery in about 2
weeks and prefer to do other things.

Good luck.





-- 
Jeff Liebermann                 jeffl@cruzio.com
PO Box 272      http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Ben Lomond CA 95005-0272
Skype: JeffLiebermann      AE6KS    831-336-2558