Klarinet Archive - Posting 000679.txt from 2003/04

From: "Lelia Loban" <lelialoban@-----.net>
Subj: [kl] Doing it yourself
Date: Sat, 26 Apr 2003 00:40:15 -0400

Kelly Abraham wrote,
>Doesn't Ferree's also have a tray with places for each key,
>spring, and screw to go while disassembling and reassembling the
>instrument?

I don't know about any tray quite that elaborate, but Ferree's does sell
screw boards. A screw board is a wooden board with a paper diagram showing
the key shapes (labelled and color coded) pasted onto it, with a hole for
each screw. I have a board for clarinet and one for sax. Some people
prefer to put the screws back in their proper holes as they take the keys
off the clarinet, but because the screws have to come out of the holes
anyway in order to clean and oil the screws and the holes, I find I'm less
likely to absent-mindedly set something down where I'll never find it again
if I make an inflexible habit of storing the screws in the board any time a
key or a leaf spring is off the clarinet. It would be fairly easy to make
a homemade screw board, but the ones Ferree's sells are affordable and
convenient. BTW, I applied a few coats of varnish over that vulnerable
paper diagram, before I used the board. As I take keys off, I put the
screws in the board and lay out the disassembled keys in the shallow lid
from a box that used to hold 10 reams of paper. I lay out the keys in the
same order that I take them off the clarinet. Then, after I've cleaned
them all, I do whatever other work needs to be done (oiling the bore,
replacing broken or missing springs, etc.), before I start putting pads in
the keys and returning them to the clarinet in the same order I took them
off. Sounds fussy, I know, but in the long run being organized results in
a lot *less* fuss. It's never *no* fuss, though, because at least once in
every restoration job, I've managed to drop a teeny-weeny gray steel screw
on the mottled gray concrete floor of the workroom. My favorite droppies
are the nearly-microscopic set-screws from old Conn saxophones. That's
when I'm reminded that one of the most important tools in the kit is a
magnet!

Lelia Loban
lelialoban@-----.net

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