Klarinet Archive - Posting 000160.txt from 2001/12

From: "Karl Krelove" <kkrelove@-----.com>
Subj: RE: [kl] Key oil and bore oil usage; was how often?
Date: Fri, 7 Dec 2001 22:26:42 -0500

> -----Original Message-----
> From: CmdrHerel@-----.com]
>
> I recommend a different approach. At least once a year for an instrument
> that gets high use, I replace the old key oil with fresh. Think
> of your car
> maintenance - Do you wait until your car runs out of oil to add
> more, or do
> you change the oil regularly? Why?
>
Well, because the engine will seize and self-destruct. I don't think the
consequence of a dry screw is so severe.

> For the brave, this means unscrewing your whole horn and wiping
> off the old
> black oil with a rag from the rods and shafts and re-oiling them
> with clean
> oil and putting it all back together.

Unless you're pretty sure you can put it back together (have taken the time
to become very familiar with the clarinet's mechanism), this can be less a
case of bravery than recklessness.

>
> For the un-brave, oiling the joints as Patricia describes every
> few months is
> preferable to not. But again, oil the whole horn, not just a key here or
> there. (Back to the car - even if you're not going to change
> the oil, don't
> wait until it runs out before you add more).
>
You can over-fill the car's crankcase with bad results at the oil seals (the
dipsticks on all of my cars have always carried a warning against
over-filling). If you overload the key bearings on a clarinet with oil,
especially if they're already loaded with maybe dust-laden old oil, the key
may become more sluggish than if you'd left things alone.

My own answer to the question about key oil, unsurprisingly in view of my
comments above, is exactly the opposite of Teri's (which doesn't make me
right and her wrong - it just confuses the issue a little more). My tendency
is to do exactly what she recommends against. When (if) a key feels
sluggish, take the screw or the rod out, clean it off, and re-oil it lightly
before putting the key back together. I also put a small drop of oil on the
bearing (where the screw enters the key) when the key seems noisy as a first
attempt to quiet the action before I think about swedging. To me, re-oiling
the whole instrument on a regular basis seems like a lot of work that I've
never found necessary.

BTW, I also have never, in the 35 years I've owned my oldest instrument (a
Moennig-tuned Buffet Crampon slightly too old to be an R-13), ever had the
bore oiled or used bore oil on it myself. None of my other clarinets (one a
25 year old Selmer 10G that is still my Bb clarinet for normal use) has ever
been oiled either. None of the repairmen I've used during that time
(starting with Hans Moennig himself) has ever recommended oiling the bores.
In fact they have each recommended against it. This isn't evidence that
there is no benefit from periodic oiling (I would think no more than once a
year), only that nothing bad need come of not oiling.

My own general rule, which applies to both kinds of oil use, is "if it ain't
broke, don't fix it."

FWIW,

Karl Krelove

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