Klarinet Archive - Posting 000639.txt from 1997/03

From: Karl Krelove <kkrelove@-----.COM>
Subj: Re: Pinned clarinets
Date: Thu, 20 Mar 1997 00:29:59 -0500

At 01:17 PM 3/19/97 +0000, you wrote:
>Hi,
>
>Help please:
>
>Are there any major problems likely to occur with a clarinet once it has
>been pinned? We are considering purchasing an R13 that appears to have
>had some work done in the speaker key area. It is about seven years old
>but we do not know when the work was done. Also how much does pinning
>affect the value?
>
In general, my experience has been that once closed and pinned correctly,
cracks cause no more trouble (there's no guarantee it can't crack somewhere
else, though if it was a poor piece of wood). You say the work appears to
have been done in the speaker key area. The only red flag that would raise
for me, not knowing exactly where the crack is, would be whether the
register opening (or any other tone hole) was affected. The one instrument
I ever owned that cracked never played as well afterward because the crack
went through a tone hole, where there was no way, it seemed, to keep the
crack from opening every once in a while (even a tiny amount of opening in
the pad seat will allow an air leak). I know the speaker hole has a metal
liner, but I would hesitate to trust any instrument with a cracked tone hole.