[Alan Brinton]

I’m looking at metal treatments. It appears that some anti-corrosive treatments simply coat the surface with something that repels moisture, as a thin coat of oil would. Other treatments have a chemical reaction with the metal that results in a hardened protective surface. I have been stripping and reseasoning cast iron pans lately. The chemical process that produces the hardened non-stick surface is polymerization. The seasoning process involves applying a series of very thin coats of oil (flax seed oil is what I use) at each stage and heating the pan to 500 degrees F for an hour. I don’t think this could be done with reeds, so what’s needed is another kind of chemical reaction that doesn’t require heat. There are products that produce such reactions. It may be that when Yamaha claims that their reeds are anti-corrosive, it’s because some such treatment has been applied. There are also treatments that transform rust into a hard coating, and sometimes this is done with cast iron pans in restoring old pans. Some refer to it as turning red rust into black rust. High heat is involved, but there are also products that do this without heat. The possible use with reeds would be to stop the corrosion process and produce a protective layer.