Klarinet Archive - Posting 000221.txt from 2010/09
From: Jennifer Jones <helen.jennifer@-----.com>
Subj: Re: [kl] Cleaning mouthpiece deposits
Date: Thu, 09 Sep 2010 03:00:50 -0400
I used to wipe my mouthpiece inside and out. I was very consistent
about it in high school, when I saw the microbial film that can build
up on the baffle (undoubtedly elsewhere too; the baffle is the most
visible part). I also started developing deposits when I began
seriously playing in high school. That was concert band and marching
band with the accompanying practices. We would have an extra early
maybe 1/2 or 3/4 hour practice before band (1st period) then I think
we met two nights a week for practices outside of school. Wiping
helped, but didn't do it for me.
I definitely agree, that it does not make sense to use brushes or
abrasives on a mouthpiece often. Though I did have a brush that I
used occasionally; I used a mouthpiece brush, but tooth brushes with a
small enough head sound great!). Washing daily seems excessive; I
think I have heard weekly recommended, but I don't believe that many
people actually do that; probably only people who play a lot. I think
I washed weekly in band, though I don't have as clear a memory of that
as wiping the mp after playing. Perhaps daily washing is most
effective. I shall have to try that.
I don't believe that the occasional fingernail scrape would hurt.
Fingernails have a hardness of abou 2.5 (moh's hardness scale). What
is the hardness of vulcanized rubber? The hardness of run-of-the-mill
mouthpiece plastic? I'll bet it is harder than 2.5. My fingernail
never left a visible scratch (maybe on the rotting vulcanized rubber,
but not on my current mp). I am sure that my teeth removed some of
the rotting rubber; by the time I switched to my new mouthpiece, there
were two dimples where my upper teeth rested on the old mp.
Toothpaste often has silica in it, which has a hardness of around 7;
definitely more abrasive than a fingernail.
So, the post on CLR made me look up the ingredients. I am adding
places these things are commonly found in (parentheses).
Wikipedia lists:
lactic acid (yogurt),
gluconic acid (food additive, also common in fruit and honey)
glycolic acid (used in cosmetics; skin peels; metabolized to oxalic
acid in the body; rhubarb and bermuda buttercup contain oxalic acid -
not nice, but people have been known to eat it.)
citric acid (everybody's cells; citric acid cycle is one component of
how we get a lot of our energy from food)
sulfamic acid (used to synthesize the artificial sweetener acesulfame,
used in denture tablets)
surfactants
The ingredients list doesn't sound so bad. Though, sulfamic acid
sounds icky to me. I wouldn't eat the stuff.
Lime-Away has:
According to the Reckitt Benckiser website
Water Diluent
Sulfamic Acid Cleaning Agent - Inorganic Acid
Sodium Chloride Thickener
PEG-2 Hydrogenated Tallow Amine Cosmetic Ingredient
C9-11 Alcohols Ethoxylate Cleaning Agent - Nonionic Surfactant
Fragrance Fragrance
FD&C Yellow 5 Colorant
colorant (9) Colorant
Sounds worse. aside from the Sulfamic acid, I'm not sure what is up
with the alcohols ethoxylate. I wonder how they hydrogenate tallow.
Animal fat is supposed to be mostly saturated already. I don't know
how they aminate it.
I definitely think I would want to use some soap and water after that.
Dish detergent? Though some of those fluorescent detergents put in
mind coumarin and rhodamine; reputedly carcinogenic or otherwise
poisonous dyes (and I believe them b/c the dyes are planar molecules
and liable to intercalate into DNA), that I wouldn't want partitioning
into or onto the rubber/plastic of my mouthpiece.
-Jennifer
Reckitt Benckiser website with Lime-Away ingredients
http://www.rbnainfo.com/productpro/ProductSearch.do?brandId=16&productLineId=266&searchType=PL&template=1
On Mon, Sep 6, 2010 at 3:57 PM, Jennifer Jones <helen.jennifer@-----.com> wrote:
>>> On Sun, Sep 5, 2010 at 8:23 PM, Gary Van Cott <gary@-----.com> wrote:
>>>> Seems rather unnecessary to me. Be sure to avoid hot water which can
>>>> damage a mouthpiece.
>> --------------------------------------------------
>> From: "Jennifer Jones" <helen.jennifer@-----.com> Sunday, September 05, 2010 8:27 PM
>>> Is this the vulcanized rubber or some other kind of mp? My old
>>> vulcanized rubber mp turned green in the smog where I grew up. Would
>>> washing the mp w/soap and water reduce the salt etc. deposits that
>>> occur on the beak?
>
> On Sun, Sep 5, 2010 at 9:53 PM, Mike Vaccaro <mike@-----.com> wrote:
>> Try vinegar to get the discoloration out of the mouthpiece. Soak it.
>> Mike
>
> Is this for the deposits or the green color? I would expect it
> wouldn't help with the green-ness. I think that is caused by
> ozone. So then the question is what are the deposits made of and does
> vinegar work for that. I know vinegar is helpful for hard water
> deposits on the faucets at home; whether this is magnesium/calcium
> deposited soap or inorganic salts from the water I am not sure. I
> like to imagine that the deposits on the mouthpiece are dried proteins
> (lysozyme!) and stuff in the mucous. Acid does tend to solubilize
> things faster than water... It might speed up the dissolving of
> precipitated proteins and other soluble biological compounds. Maybe
> some of it is calculus, like the stuff plaque producing microbes
> deposit on your teeth that the dentist scrapes off. Though I don't
> get much tartar.
> It takes a couple weeks for much crust to build up on the mp and I
> scrape it off with a fingernail pretty regularly. It is also only
> recently that I've been playing much at all and this is only at home,
> so the reed-mp setup stays together for probably a week at a time. I
> wipe out the mp and wipe off the reed periodically. Sometimes I have
> to straighten out the tip of the reed, when it gets warped, though it
> is not necessary, if I am willing to tolerate five minutes or so of
> stuffy unstable playing.
>
> Some suggested denture cleaner
> Some suggested lime away or CLR, which sounds terrible. Other people
> thought that sounded nasty too.
>
> Should the cork be removed and replaced after soaking?
>
> I see Lelia Loban has a nice tidy post on this:
> http://test.woodwind.org/Databases/Klarinet/2000/02/000211.txt
>
> Reviewing the archives on topics like mpc gunk can be a nightmare: a
> search for mouthpiece deposits will give a nice demonstration. While
> a search can give you several options. It is probably easiest for joe
> blo to ask people about this.
>
> On the way to becoming a filthy, reeking, slobbery orc.
>
> -Jennifer
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