Klarinet Archive - Posting 000311.txt from 1995/01

From: Fred Jacobowitz <fredj@-----.EDU>
Subj: Re: Repairing pads
Date: Sun, 22 Jan 1995 12:23:52 -0500

Gordon,
As a doubler I play sax too but I have always had alot of trouble
dealing with sax pads. The reason is that they usually need alot of
glue. You can use many kinds of heat-softened glues such as shellac or
even heat-gun glue sticks, which some technicians actually use. The
problem is, with such a big pad, when you use that much glue, the
glue tends to
shrink alot as it hardens over the course of hours or days and so the pad
moves. Many larger pads need to be shimmed with paper or cardboard and
THEN glued. All in all it's a time-consuming proceedure because taking
off and putting on sax keys is a pain. And, if the glue has gotten
to the point where it has dried out enuf to fall out, the pad is
probaly hard and won't fit well when you reglue it so you might as
well get a new pad. Also, if the pad in under one of
the pearls you have to cover the pearl with a metal spatula so that it
doesn't melt when you heat it! Yet another factor to deal with.
Frankly, as a pro, I leave it to the other pro's (the repairmen) to do
THEIR job so I can
do mine and I write it off to business expenses, as I advise anyone else
to do. It's just to much time and effort for me and time IS money. If
you really want to get into repair, there are a few repair manuals for
band instructors out there (the ERIC BRAND book comes to mind) but most
of the repairmen I've dealt with skoff at these saying, "That's NOT how
to do it!" or some such. And they're probably right! Sorry to be rather
negative about do-it-yourselfing but good luck if you wanna try.

Fred Jacobowitz

On Sat, 21 Jan 1995, Gordon Tulloch wrote:

> Hello:
>
> A pad on my tenor sax fell off the other day and I was wondering how to fix
> it. I seem to remember one day one of my old student clarinet's pads fell
> off and my teacher simply put it back in and heated it with a lighter to
> melt the glue and reattach it - is my remembrance (over 15 years old likely)
> correct? I admit I tried it one spec and it didn't work - what is used to
> hold the pads, anything special? I would hazard a guess that some sort of
> wax is involved, would candle wax work in a pinch? Or is something else
> needed? Thanks!
>
> Regards,
> Gord
>