Klarinet Archive - Posting 000118.txt from 1996/01

From: niethamer@-----.BITNET
Subj: Re: needs repadding
Date: Sat, 6 Jan 1996 00:52:58 -0500

On Wed, 3 Jan 1996, Cathleen Renee Orr wrote:

> When I saw Bob Scott just after Thanksgiving, he said my
> horn looked like it could use new pads, and I notice when practicing, I
> sometimes get water leaks at my top joint C#/G# pinkey key. My R-13 is a 1983
> horn, I don't know if the origional owner ever had the pads redone, I've had
> the horn for three and a half years, and I've never had more than minor key
> adjustments done. The pads are dingy (not real dingy) white. How do you know
> when they need replacing besides looking obviously worn?

If the pad is obvoiusly ripped, it (obviously) needs replacing. My
original repair guru (since retired) opined that replacing individual
faulty pads on the clarinet was an option, because of the relatively
individual action of most keys (unlike the flute, where sets of pads are
routinely repalced with a new set of presumably/hopefully same thickness
pads to save the repair tech hours of extra work and the customer oodles
of extra $$)

My current tech, Mark Jacobi won't mess with a pad, even if it looks a
little suspect, as long as it still seals.

Water leaks in the c#-g# and Eb-Bb pads are more related to placement of
those tone holes on the instrument body, and less to the efficacy of the pad
itself. Most repair techs
I've dealt with make those cork for that reason. Jacobi seems to go hot
and cold on cork pads - sometimes yes, sometimes no.

In short, I don't think I'd let someone "overhaul" or at least completely
repad a functioning instrument, unless every last pad was green, and the
clarinet leaked like the proverbial seive. I might be more inclined to
ask a tech to put the keywork in first class order - no additional play
in the keywork, so the pads seat the same way each time they're hitting
the tone hole.

Of course there are some real repair folks on this list who could
approach this from a more knowledgeable perspective than I can.

David Niethamer