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Comparison of ocarina construction materials
What should an ocarina be made out of? Ocarinas are made out of:
Ocarina Material Comparison
Ocarinas are made in various different materials. Here are some things to keep in mind when thinking about what you want your ocarina to be made out of.
Why Are Clay Ocarinas So Popular?
You might be wondering why clay ocarinas seem to dominate the ocarina universe. My thoughts:
- Clay/ceramic is the most popular kind of material to make ocarinas out of probably because of it's ease to make by hand. Some people want to make their own instruments, and the easiest way to do this is to work with clay. See the next point for some more discussion...
- Many of the businesses that make and sell ocarinas probably started out as a hobby or recreational activity. Jane wanted an ocarina and she decided to try making one for herself... Jane enjoyed making ocarinas so much that she decided to make more to sell and now we have Jane's Handcrafted Ocarinas Business.
- Clay is the easiest alternative becuase all you need is, well, a hunk of clay. No specialized tools. No expensive $20,000 plastic molds or tooling needed for mass production. Just a hunk of clay. And probably some time and determination...
- Ocarinas are ancient instruments and the most ancient of all materials (to make things out of) is clay. So I'd say that many ocarinas are clay since the path of least resistance is to do things the traditional way and make them out of traditional clay.
- If you want to make your own ocarina or ten, without spending a small fortune, clay is probably your best choice. If you want to buy an ocarina, condiser the materials also.
Wooden ocarinas are also available. You won't find nearly as many wooden ocarinas out there as you will clay. Some thoughts:
- There are some very nice looking wooden ocarinas out there. In fact, I would probably say that most of the wooden ocarinas out there are like fine pieces of furniture in that they are beautiful to look at.
- It takes some pretty good woodworking skills to make a wooden ocarina. And someone who has those craftsman's skills is going to make a nice looking piece of woodwork.
- In addition to the skills, it takes some serious (and expensive) tools. So the cost to get started is higher.
- Wooden ocarinas tend to be more expensive than clay or plastic.
Plastic deserves some attention since I believe there are some very common misconceptions. Let me first get this off my chest, and then I'll try an elaborate:
There are very low quality plastic instruments!
There are also very high quality plastic instruments!
Here's some food for thought:
- Many people associate plastic with cheapness of quality, especially in musical instruments. One reason perhaps is because there are many "toy instruments" out there which are usually made out of plastic.
- There is an absolutely huge range of different plastics and an even bigger range of uses. Try and not make generalizations about plastic musical instruments.
- Some plastics are very high tech materials and have very specialized characteristics. For example, polycarbonate is very tough and is used for safety glasses and bullet proof glass. Some plastics are cheap and some are very expensive.
- The main reason you would make something (including the ocarina) in plastic is because you want to make a bunch of them. The basic idea is that you spend a pile of money to have molds/tooling made, and then you can make as many parts (instruments) as you want at a low cost per part/instrument. You would probably spend anywhere from $5,000 to over $100,000 to make molds for something like an ocarina.
- There is a large difference in quality between low end and high end molds. In other words, you could have some very high quality plastic ocarinas made from high quality molds. You could also have ocarinas that are toys and NOT musical instruments.
- You have to make and sell a whole bunch of ocarinas to recover the costs of the investment in the molds/tooling.
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