Klarinet Archive - Posting 000077.txt from 1995/05
From: CLARK FOBES <reedman@-----.COM> Subj: Re: How are mouthpieces made? Date: Tue, 2 May 1995 15:12:30 -0400
You wrote:
>
>The recent talk about mouthpieces leads to a dumb question in my mind:
>how does one make a mouthpiece? Not that I intend to build them
>myself, but looking at my own Gigliotti recently, I wondered how one
>would make them other than pouring them into molds and milling them
>out for specifics like the facing. (Of course, if they are
>hand-carved out of blocks of plastic, that would explain the expense.)
>For that matter, what is a hand-made (I'm assuming) mouthpiece made
>of? Are mouthpieces ever made of anything except plastic or crystal?
>Inquiring minds, etc etc etc.
>
The making of mouthpieces has changed a great deal since the very
first Denner clarinets. Until about the mid 18th century the mouthpiece
and barrel joint were made as one section and were usually made out of
the same material as the clarinet. (Generally boxwood)
At some point makers realised that due to the problems of wood
mouthpieces changing and breaking that it made more sense to make this
as a separate part. Even though wood was the primary material there are
some ivory mouthpieces extant from that period.
Mouthpieces in those days were always hand carved. Mouthpieces were
always made by the maker of the instrument and considered an integral
part of the whole. I don't think that it was into this century that we
start to see mouthpiece making become an entirely specialised skill.
Tropical woods started showing up as clarinet mouthpieces around
the end of the 18th century. I have no proof, but it makes sense that
as Europeans colonised and importted materials from Africa that these
harder woods became available for experimentation by makers.Oskar Kroll
states in his book "the clarinet" that the clarinet mouthpiece
underwent major changes in design about the same time that Mueller made
his major changes in clarinet design. 1810-20. He cites examples of
makers experimenting with glass, china, marble, ivory and metal.
Curiously the first experimenter in glass was Szalkiewicz of Warsaw.
Some makers tried to reduce the warpage of wood mouthpieces by
inserting metal over the table and lay. (Stengel, Ziegler and Czermak)
This apparantly resulted in the splitting of the wood and was soon
dropped. Kroll states that ebonite was not introduced until the 1870's.
I understand that the common practice for making early "hard
rubber" mouthpieces was to machine the the product from rod stock to a
final finish. For some reason hard rubber rod stock has become
virtually unavailable. No doubt some makers may still use this process,
but by far the most common practice now is to mold the mouthpiece and
machine finish the table and facing.
The largest maker of molded mouthpieces in this country is J.J.
Babbitt of Elkhart, IN. Babbitt makes clarinet mouthpieces for Gennusa,
Gigliotti, Hite, Portnoy, Blayman, Daniels, Dirksmeyer,Pyne, Morgan
Selmer, Yamaha, Leblanc and FOBES.
Some makers like Gennusa and Gigliotti have their mold and facing
cam so well tweaked that the finished mouthpiece from Babbitt requires
very little if any hand work. In my case, I designed a mold that
resides at Babbit and is for my use only. This "core" mold is designed
to produce interior dimensions that are slightly under my target
values. I also have the mouthpiece molded to a bore plug that is
smaller than my desired bore and hand ream the bore up to my specs. The
problem with a molded bore is that it can become somewhat parabolic
rather than linear due to gases and water that get trapped between the
plug and the bore wall as the mouthpiece cools and shrinks. Also, by
using several reamers that work on various parts of the bore I can
"voice" and balance a mouthpiece as I work on it.
The most critical part of finishing a mouthpiece is the facing.
Babbit has an interesting machine for this process. The mouthpiece is
mounted on a mandrel and rides on a carrier. The carrier follows a
motion that is designated by what is called a "following cam" or "cam"
for short. The design of this cam is very critical as it will dictate
the curve of all mouthpiece facings. I went to Babbit to design my cam
and worked with the machinist for almost 2 hours just to get this
right. My cam has my "zero" facing and I can open up from there to all
my other facings. The mouthpiece is run on the carrier under a cutting
wheel made of a special abrasive. I believe that Van Doren has a
similar method but has a rotating blade to cut the facing and this
results in those perpendicular marks on their facings. Ostensibly a
machined facing should be more accurate than a hand facing, but because
my mouthpieces rarely arrive with a "perfect" facing they always need
some adjustment. As one becomes more and more savy with the mechanics
of mouthpiece design he can adjust a curve to produce more overtones,
less overtones and greater or lesser resistance.
There is no question that very good mouthpieces can be completely
machined and be produced inexpensively and suitably for the seemingly
inexhaustible student market. But a truly beautiful sounding mouthpiece
still requires the human touch. Thank God.
Clark W Fobes
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