Klarinet Archive - Posting 000474.txt from 2005/03

From: "Lelia Loban" <lelialoban@-----.net>
Subj: [kl] Cracks in Edgware
Date: Fri, 18 Mar 2005 09:49:52 -0500


R.N.Taylor wrote,
>I was recounting the tale of the cracked Edgware
>to my teacher who is a former colleague of Jack
>Brymer, and he exclaimed 'oh, but the Edgware
>could be a marvellous instrument'.

I've also heard good things about the Edgware's sound, but in many years of
prowling junktiques shops, auctions and flea markets, I've never seen an
Edgware without a crack -- and I've seen a lot of Edgwares. Most often, I
find a very badly cracked barrel (the wide-open kind that results from the
shape of the bore changing radically, in wood that wasn't aged long enough)
*and* at least one crack somewhere else. Random chance should mean that
some of these instruments have good wood in them. If I found a cheap
Edgware without a crack, I'd buy it, because I'm curious, and willing to
take the chance that these instruments are old enough that if the wood were
going to crack, it should have done so already. I wouldn't risk any more
money than flea market chump change, though....

Re. oiling, the Klarinet Archives are full of pros and cons. For me, the
right answer is, "It depends." Buffet says not to oil its new instruments,
but that instruction may not apply to vintage Buffets or other oldies. I
try to apply common sense, instead of blindly following one rule or
another. If the wood looks and feels good, I leave it alone. When I
bought my 1931 Buffet clarinet in A from Jim Lande, for instance, he hadn't
been playing it, but he'd kept it in excellent condition. That clarinet
didn't need oil. I bought a Signet Special from a woman who'd been oiling
it so much it left grease spots on my clothes the first time I played it.
That clarinet probably won't need oil in the next hundred years!

When I bought my 1937 Buffet Bb at a flea market in 1998, that clarinet was
in long-neglected condition, in a beat-up, leaky case. The wood looked
pale and dry, and felt papery-dry. I oiled that clarinet inside and
outside before I tried playing it, and then I broke it in slowly, as if it
were a new instrument. Since then, I've kept it on the schedule my grade
school band director recommended, back when dinosaurs roamed the earth:
oiled it twice a year, on 4th of July and New Year's. Oil on the pads will
ruin them, so I either wrap the keys with plastic wrap first, if I'm only
oiling the bore, or take all the keys off, if I'm oiling inside and out.

Thorough oiling is one of the safest ways to clean out a dirty, neglected
clarinet. Some dealers will scrub out a filthy old garage horn with soap
and water to make it more presentable for sale, by the way. Oiling, if
nothing else, will get rid of the soap residue. I understand that a dealer
who opens up a case that reeks of mildew and dead mice might go a little
bit nuts with the Lysol and the bottle brush, but I avoid buying a clarinet
that shows signs of being scrubbed harshly.

Lelia Loban
It's Friday. Do you know where your tax dollars are going?

------------------------------

Date: 18 Mar 2005 09:13:13 +0000
To: klarinet@-----.org
From: ShadowCat@-----.com
Subject: Re: [kl] Cracks in Edgware
Message-Id: <down-with-screechsticks13-13-13-13-666>

I'm making my stupid pet human type this. Don't pay attention to anything
Lelia says. Seh's stupid, stupid, stupid. She gets all that propaganda
from her lying, howling, screaming screech- sticks that want her to oil
them instead of petting me and feeding me, and by the way, that was a
mighty small breakfast, you lazy wench.

What you all should really do for your screech-sticks is: roll them down a
concrete staircase, run the car over them a few times, then soak them in
gasoline and set them on fire. This regimen prevents them from growing up
to be v*c**m cle*ners or breeding more of their kind, and makes a great
improvement in the tone quality, too. That Lande fellow seems nice
enough, but he's a screech-stick pusher all the same, and he brought more
of them in here, and one time he took my photograph with a horrible
flashbulb and probably provided my photo and all kinds of personal data
about me to the v*c**m cl*aner conspiracy, and so last time he visited, I
hid under some blankets. The screech-sticks can't find me when I'm under
some blankets. Neither can the v*c**m cl*aner. So there.

Ssssssssss!
Shadow Cat

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