What to do with bare oboe carcass?

November 17, 2016 10:05 AM

I recently visited an oboe factory (amazing!) and was given a wooden oboe carcass complete with metal connectors from their stock of cracked rejects. Now, I dislike stuff for stuff's sake, so what can I DO with this item? All reuse ideas gratefully received.
posted by doornoise to Grab Bag (16 answers total)

Best answer: Lamp? It's hollow, yes?
posted by amtho at 10:11 AM on November 17, 2016 [1 favorite]

Best answer: Lamp lamp lamp! Alternatively, I suppose you could get more ambitious and make a hat stand from it.
posted by DarlingBri at 10:15 AM on November 17, 2016

Best answer: replace an umbrella handle with it?
posted by rmless at 10:17 AM on November 17, 2016

Best answer: Candle holder. Craft a foot it can stand in.
posted by Namlit at 10:24 AM on November 17, 2016

You could probably make some sort of musical instrument out of it.
posted by maryr at 10:34 AM on November 17, 2016 [15 favorites]

Best answer: No one mentioned making it into a pipe? What are we? Grown-ups?

I like the lamp idea.

My initial thought was that it looked like a shillelagh. Maybe fill it with epoxy and use it as a walking stick.
posted by Seamus at 10:45 AM on November 17, 2016

you put your weed in it
posted by thelonius at 10:59 AM on November 17, 2016 [4 favorites]

Response by poster: Steampunk shewee! Though I'd have to be wary.
posted by doornoise at 11:30 AM on November 17, 2016 [4 favorites]

doornoise, can you mark you own response as Best Answer?
posted by maryr at 12:11 PM on November 17, 2016

Best answer: Maybe you could finds a teleidoscope or kaleidoscope that would fit in it. I love my teleidoscope for looking at Christmas lights!
posted by jgirl at 12:13 PM on November 17, 2016

Is it so defective that you couldn't make a musical instrument out of it?
posted by bertran at 12:15 PM on November 17, 2016

Response by poster: From what I saw at the factory, bertran, it takes a team of about 20 highly specialised craftspeople with decades of experience and all the tools and gubbins to complete a decent sounding oboe. Plus those oboe bodies aren't cracked, as this one is.

Loving the other ideas!
posted by doornoise at 1:49 PM on November 17, 2016

My father was (among other things) a recorder builder, and he saved up the rejects over the years (cracks happen, and they're not a good idea to have in a musical instrument that gets damp from the inside) and one day he build up a whole pile of nicely turned recorder bodies in the fireplace, invited the local recorder-and-Early-Music-professor, and made a bonfire, accompanied with a bottle of the better wine to soothe the poor woman's nerves. So you could visit a few more factories and then invite the local Oboe players for a party...
posted by Namlit at 3:17 PM on November 17, 2016 [2 favorites]

Portable collapsible Tiki torch holder?
posted by Megafly at 4:34 PM on November 17, 2016

Thank you for the phrase "oboe carcass". I'm not sure how I will use it, but you can bet someday I will.
posted by allelopath at 6:25 PM on November 17, 2016 [1 favorite]

You could attach a shoehorn piece to the end of that and have the world's fanciest shoe assistance device. But that assumes you'd use a shoehorn.

I like the hat rack suggestion. You could also put some hooks into it and use it as a wall coat rack if you wanted to drill into a bit more.
posted by helloimjennsco at 6:13 AM on November 18, 2016