Klarinet Archive - Posting 000004.txt from 2006/02

From: "Karl Krelove" <karlkrelove@-----.net>
Subj: RE: [kl] cork grease
Date: Wed, 01 Feb 2006 08:02:50 -0500

Kurt,

The problem is you see "rotting" corks but can only really guess at the
cause. Also, there's a huge distance between once-a-year and overgreasing
every time you get the clarinet out.

Whether it's because of slightly ill-fitting corks or just the natural
expansion and contraction of a material as soft as cork, I find that
sometimes I just have to grip too hard and push too much to assemble my
instruments. So I put a tiny dab of grease on my finger or directly on the
cork and spread it around. It seems to do no harm to the corks and has
probably prevented a lot of bent keys over my last 40 years of so of
playing. As needed, yes, but much more often than annually. It wouldn't be a
good thing in my opinion to encourage students who don't know what they're
doing (that's why we call them students) to think that one application of
grease a year is some kind of standard or goal. Unless you want them to
spend their repair money having key rods straightened. I know you didn't say
that exactly, but a student reading your post might have thought you did.

It seems to me most of the posts so far have focused on frequency and miss
the need to teach students a reasonable way to apply the grease:
- very small quantity
- spread it around by hand (fingers)
- try to apply it away from the bottom of the tenon where it tends to be
pushed anyway when you assemble the joint
- wipe the grease off your fingers before you get it all over the keys.

I've seen as much greasy mess on kids' keys as on the corks. Most are
misusing the stuff not so much by using it too often as by slathering it on
carelessly and by the ton.

My 2-cents' worth.

Karl

> -----Original Message-----
> From: kurtheisig@-----.net]
> Sent: Wednesday, February 01, 2006 6:49 AM
> To: klarinet@-----.org
> Subject: Re: [kl] cork grease
>
> I have well over a dozen clarinets---all with corks at least
> 30 years old. I recently did change a tenon cork on my Selmer
> 9* that I won in a raffle in 1965 and used for 11 years in
> University and played in several local orchestras, before I
> started using my Buffets for most classical playing. All my
> corks fit perfectly. The cork grease I use is what Buffet was
> providing in the mid-70's---DOES ANYONE KNOW WHAT IT IS MADE
> OF??? LOOKS LIKE IT MIGHT HAVE SOME LANOLIN IN IT.
>
> I apply cork grease ---AS NEEDED---ie, maybe once a year.
>
> We have rented out hundreds of clarinets in our stores and
> the primary cause of bad corks appears to be rotting from too
> much cork grease. The students and customers that head our
> "Only grease a little for the first month and after that once
> per year." get very long lived corks.
>
> Kurt Heisig
> Kurt Heisig Music stores
> Clarinet repairman
> (CAll about the new Heisig Saxes---(831) 425-5658)
>
>
> >
> >Bill Hausmann wrote,
> >>>I have seen it numerous times. The corks were completely
> saturated
> >>>with grease, but otherwise intact.
>
>
>
>
>
>
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