Klarinet Archive - Posting 001015.txt from 1997/08

From: avrahm galper <agalper@-----.com>
Subj: Cork Grease
Date: Sun, 24 Aug 1997 17:20:59 -0400

My Toronto clarinet teacher, Herbert Pye, told me to make cork grease
from beeswax and lard.
I don't remember the ratio he told me to use but I used 50-50.

We had an empty tin from Lactogen, the powder to make milk for babies.
I bought a pound of beeswax and a pound of lard (not exactly Kosher) put
it in the tin and melted
this over the stove. In a short time it also cooled. The stuff was
great.

I brought it down to the orchestra to show the guys and told them about
it.
One French horn player came up to me and said, "I'll bring you a little
tin, could I get some?"
"Make you own," I said to him, assuming that in no time I will not have
any of this commodity left.

Well, here I am decades later and the tin is still half full.

I could have given some to the French horn player after all.

Avrahm Galper