 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Katelyn
Date: 2006-07-19 22:25
After much begging and pleading over the years, I'm finally the proud (understatement) owner of a slightly used Buffet R13, with a serial number in the 549,000s. My old model is a plastic Artley that I've had for six years, so I'm somewhat green to the whole wood clarinet world. Is there anyone on here that can give me some expert advice on the care and feeding of my precious new baby? Thank you SO much in advance.
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Author: Sean.Perrin
Date: 2006-07-19 22:41
Make sure to break it in if it hasn't been played for a while... even if it'sold and has been previously broken in. Itould also need some bore oil... in fact it might pay to get a technicain to look it over and check to make sure everything is in perfect order (pads/rods etc.) as it may need an overhaul.
Other than that... enjoy!
Founder and host of the Clarineat Podcast: http://www.clarineat.com
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Author: Jack Kissinger
Date: 2006-07-22 23:15
Hi Katelyn,
Buffet provides a pamphlet on the care of their instruments. A copy is online here:
http://www.buffet-crampon.com/instruments/instruments_detail.asp?ID=109&act=tips&source=Care%5FAnd%5FMaintenance%2DBuffet%5FCrampon%5FClarinet%2Exml
Francois Kloc is Director of Marketing for Buffet Crampon USA, Inc. In my experience he is also a very nice person who enjoys helping clarinetists in general and Buffet players in particular. If you have any specific questions, you can e-mail him here:
francois.kloc@buffetcrampon.fr
I have to disagree with one of Sean Perrin's suggestions. I strongly recommend that you NOT oil the bore of your instrument. From the serial number, I can estimate that your clarinet is not more than 3 or 4 years old. If it was used lightly and cared for reasonably before you got it, it shouldn't need oiling. FYI, Buffet recommends against oiling new clarinets. Also, Francois has taken the position, in the past, that one should only oil a clarinet if it appears to have dried out significantly (something that is not likely to happen under normal use). He's also said that he has never oiled his own clarinets. In any case, given your lack of experience in caring for a wooden clarinet, my main concern is that you will go about it incorrectly, running the risk of damaging pads. If it is dried out to the point of needing oiled it would be best to let a repair tech do it after removing all the keys.
If you bought the instrument from its previous owner, it wouldn't hurt to have it looked over by a repair tech but it's very unlikely, from your description, that it will need any work, let alone an overhaul. One thing you can do yourself fairly easily is check for leaks using the "suck" and "blow" tests on both of your joints. You can find a brief description of how to perform these in my message in the following thread:
http://test.woodwind.org/clarinet/BBoard/read.html?f=1&i=60470&t=60434
If you don't have a good seal on either joint, then you definitely should see a repair tech.
Best regards,
jnk
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Author: Katelyn
Date: 2006-07-23 20:37
That's helpful. I've also scoured the woodwind clarinet info pages for some basics...Thanks again so much. The last thing I want to do is something stupid and have it crack or all the keys fall off or something.
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Author: clarnibass
Date: 2006-07-24 06:24
About the bore oiling - My opinion is that unless there is a very good reason to oil it, there is no reason to oil it
I've never oiled my two years old bass and Bb clarinets. I never oiled my 7 years old Bb. My 14 years old Bb was oiled once, just because the repairer said he would oil it and I didn't know what oiling really means. I did oil my (around) 50+ years old alto clarinet, because wood looked completely dry, and it lost almost all its colour.
So here is a question - If the wood looks completely dry like that (i.e. it is much lighter than the original black and you can see the texture) does it really mean oil will help? If yes, what will it help with? Prevent cracks?
Thanks.
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Author: Max S-D
Date: 2006-07-24 07:05
Well, the "original" black is mostly dye, because I'm pretty sure the natural color of grenadilla is a dark red-brown, but yeah, the way my tech described it to me, the bore oil just helps to seal the wood and keep it from absorbing too much water and wearing down too fast. I might have completely misunderstood. This was a few years ago.
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Author: L. Omar Henderson
Date: 2006-07-24 14:11
(Disclaimer - I sell a plant derived oil for woodwind instrument wood)
There are many conditions that cause Grenadilla wood to loose its natural oil and oil that was used to impregnate the wood at manufacture. A lot of the loss of oil either natural or added depends on the particular piece of wood that you have in your instrument. For an unknown (at least not yet) reason certain pieces of wood tend to loose oil more quickly than others. Since the natural oil in the wood and the characteristics of the oil used by manufacturers are of plant origin they are miscible in water (to some degree) because Nature designed the plant oil molecule to interact in the aqueous environment of the plant - wood. Putting moisture through the bore will remove some oil from the wood. The oil too has some vapor pressure and will evaporate over time which is accelerated by heat and dry conditions.
The plant oil molecule has fatty acid side chains arranged so that those facing the surface form a hydrophilic surface which interacts with water and accumulates layers of water. The layer most close to the oil surface is more tightly bound than outer layers of water which are held by relatively loose hydrogen bonding. In dry environments the oil acts as a water buffer holding a certain amount of moisture within the wood. When water is lost from the wood the oil molecule becomes more prone to migrate and potentially evaporate because it becomes more hydrophobic and more easily displaced from other hydrophilic interactions holding it in the wood. Oils added by impregnation too are more easily displaced than the natural Grenadilla oil found in the wood.
It, at present, is hard to prove whether oiling wood actually prevents cracking because a controlled experiment is too difficult, time consuming, and expensive to perform. Each individual piece of wood is different and has different structure and potential stress patterns than the next piece of wood. However, historically oil has been added to wood to help perceived stability and for preservation. Wooden artifacts dating from a thousand years or more have been preserved to present condition using oil preservatives, and present day conservators in museums (personal communications) use oil and humidity control to maintain wooden artifacts.
L. Omar Henderson
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Author: simonjwhite
Date: 2006-07-25 10:02
First wood and first Clarinet too. I've just inherited a Boosey and Hawkes Clarinet. It has a serial number 501xxx and it appears to be made from wood (how would I know?) it also says Emperor on it. How do you tell what type of Clarinet it is?
I played the Bassoon at school - some years ago now - and I'm thinking I'll give my 'new' instrument another lease of life. Hence being here I guess.
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Author: mnhnhyouh
Date: 2006-07-25 10:49
"It, at present, is hard to prove whether oiling wood actually prevents cracking because a controlled experiment is too difficult, time consuming, and expensive to perform. "
Well it is not hard to design a suitable experiment.
Design some sort of oiling regime, and do it to a randomly selected half of a big lot of wood.
Dont do it to the other half.
Expose all of that wood to dousing in warm saliva and air, drying periodically.
"Each individual piece of wood is different and has different structure and potential stress patterns than the next piece of wood."
Random selection should overcome this, if the sample size is sufficiently large.
Now cost does come into this, and the only people with a vested interest to do this are the purveyors of bore oil.
If you were such a person, would you pay to run this experiment, when business is ticking along nicely?
As for old wood, are Strad violins oiled?
h
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Author: L. Omar Henderson
Date: 2006-07-25 12:09
A piece of wood is not a clarinet. Drilling holes and inserting posts into the wood and hanging keywork attached to the posts which produces other force vectors, finishing the bore, etc. is the way to do the experiment. There must also be different conditions - warm, moist air applied to the bore, and others - temperature differences and Relative Humidity extremes applied to the outside. Manufacturers also impregnate the wood with plant derived oil and have different aging regimes before manufacture. What bore oil should be used? At what intervals? These variables as well as many others unmentioned add up to a whopping sample size, large and expensive environmental chambers, and a significant time course. The bore oil market is hardly able to support this kind of expensive experimentation. If some kind benefactor would like to supply a couple million US dollars and pay for staff I think that it would be an important scientific experiment.
L. Omar Henderson
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