Re: Plastic mouthpieces and HEAT!


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Posted by Leland on November 15, 2003 at 00:13:10:

In Reply to: Plastic mouthpieces and HEAT! posted by Simon McCauley on November 14, 2003 at 21:03:12:

Well, the body temperature may be 98 deg F, but the lips themselves won't get to that temperature until after a lot of warmup. Skin temperature is usually around 72-74 degrees.

A hot metal mouthpiece -- especially one that's been sitting in a horn on the field during a hot summer day -- can get to be substantially hotter than one's lips. It's usually not hot enough to burn to the point of injury, but it is possible.

Again, this is where plastic makes sense with its much-lower-than-metal latent transfer of heat. A plastic mouthpiece will have to be stupidly hot to even hurt, while a metal one will quickly dump its heat into the lips. Both are really the same temperature -- it's the metal's ability to transfer heat quickly that makes it feel hotter (or colder, too).


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