For Those Who Think Outside The Square

[blackalex1952]

As a musician,tinkerer,reflective existential phenomenologist and budding luthier, I find this possibility fascinating...
http://www.theage.com.au/it-pro/busines ... i0e4w.html
Perhaps graphene will be used in the future to strengthen tonewood and bracing to create even better acoustic instruments.I speculate further, that it could perhaps be used, due to its superconductivity, to make microphones ( dynamic,condensor etc) or indeed soundboards that are both timber and microphonic as well.Or non feedback magnetic pickup soundboards. The possibility also exists that computer technology, or whatever follows computers, could be incorporated into the instruments themselves. Incidentally, the article continues on to talk about indestructible condoms...combine all the suggestions in the article, colour changing, TV screens,electronic conductivity,strength,flexibility,low mass,thinness,transparency, laser 3d printing...the MIND BOGGLES!!!(I'm talking luthierie here, folks,not condoms!I only mentioned condoms in passing, because the article did...)

[kiwigeo]

Yeah a great development....tightwad brand condoms that you can use again and again....

[blackalex1952]

Well, I think luthierie should be a far greater priority than condoms! That is unless the condoms substantially limit the number of interruptions to the luthierie process! Eg.children and wives who demand time, expensive shoes and overseas trips at the expense of tonewood and workshop expenses!LOL!

[Nick]

It's going to be more for electronic purposes simply because of it's conductivity and physical thickness (thousands of layers all doing different things and still less than the thickness of current conductive materials). As a structural member you would leave it in it's initial form of carbon, being only one atom thick it would have no structural strength unless millions of layers are present, then you may as well have left it as carbon! Several of our PHD students at work (I work in a university Chemistry department) are looking at it currently in their Nano research, one with quite an exciting outcome if she gets it right!

[kiwigeo]

It's going to be more for electronic purposes simply because of it's conductivity and physical thickness (thousands of layers all doing different things and still less than the thickness of current conductive materials). As a structural member you would leave it in it's initial form of carbon, being only one atom thick it would have no structural strength unless millions of layers are present, then you may as well have left it as carbon! Several of our PHD students at work (I work in a university Chemistry department) are looking at it currently in their Nano research, one with quite an exciting outcome if she gets it right!

What the ****** happens if you drop your piece of one atom thick graphene on your workshop floor???? Took me 2 frickin' hours to find the screw that fell out of my router base plate yesterday

[blackalex1952]

Thanks for an informed comment Nick! What about my postulation regarding soundboard sensors, controls,electronics, microphones and pickups?
Martin! Perhaps graphene is slippery like graphite and being invisible it could overtake the banana skin as a trip hazard!

[Nick]

Thanks for an informed comment Nick!

I'm not that informed, I'm only the monkey that operates machinery in the workshop but we speak to academics and students during the course of the day that are looking at this stuff. With the amount of research currently going on into the commercialization uses around the globe, I think this stuff will be becoming commonplace in a large range of goods in the next five-ten years

What about my postulation regarding soundboard sensors, controls,electronics, microphones and pickups?

Within the realms of possibility (and more than ideal for electronics!) who knows what's possible? They are only just starting down the road to seriously research the possibilities for Graphene.
If you're interested in engineering at all then check out 'nitinol'. It's a super elastic metal alloy with a memory, you can bend it into any mangled shape then put it in hot water or use a hair dryer on it and it will reform back into it's original shape, useful for the panels on the wife's car!