 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Dutchy
Date: 2006-10-02 18:26
Hi, all, I normally reside over at the Oboe board, but I have a question about my sister's clarinet. It's a Normandy wood clarinet, which I understand was made by LeBlanc in the 1950s and 60s. She used it for junior high and high school band in the early to mid-1970s. She doesn't have any use for it, but she doesn't want to get rid of it either for sentimental reasons, so I have custody of it. It lives a very quiet life up on the shelf with the recorders, and nobody has played it for about 30+ years.
So now my daughter plays the clarinet, and she has a plastic Bundy that she's had for years, and I was wondering about having her move up to a wooden clarinet, and I was wondering whether she could use Aunt Janet's clarinet. The thing is, it has a pattern of very small, fine, vertical cracks, all over the surface of both of the middle joints, and the bell, too. Is this a sign of incipient cracking? Should we not play it? Or do all old wood clarinets eventually get this pattern of tiny, tiny cracks all over the surface, and not to worry?
It looks like the "crazing" that you get on old oil paintings, except that it's entirely vertical, there aren't any horizontal lines making "squares".
ETA: There are no obvious cracks in the instrument itself, just this pattern of crazing right on the surface.
Post Edited (2006-10-02 18:28)
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Author: BobD
Date: 2006-10-02 20:32
Probably hard to say without actually seeing the horn. If it were my horn and, based on what you are saying, I would probably remove all the keys and give it an oil soak. Certainly someone with more experience will probably reply.
Bob Draznik
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Author: ohsuzan
Date: 2006-10-02 22:36
Hi Dutchy --
Fancy meeting you here! Since I used to play clarinet, and my husband still does, I hang around here occasionally, too.
One of our clarinets, a newish (3 yrs.) mid-level Yamaha, has the same sort of crazing in the wood that you describe. I was not real happy when I first noticed it -- it is disconcerting. What I suspect, though, is that this is just a characteristic of the less-than-optimum-quality wood from which both your and our instrument was fashioned. Really good grenadilla isn't as porous.
I hope that someone who has had some experience with this sort of instrument will respond. I frankly doubt if the expense of an oil immersion treatment is warranted for an old Normandy. Maybe a do-it-yourself oil rubdown (I seem to recall you are a do-it-yourself type of person) would be in order.
If the instrument is playable, I can't think it would hurt to let it be played!
Good luck!
Susan
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Author: Chris P
Date: 2006-10-02 23:09
You see this on some new wooden Yamaha instruments as well (grenadilla piccolos, oboes and clarinets), as they don't polish the wood, so surface vessels will show up. Buffing the joints hides these vessels and gives a deep shine, but not all companies buff their instruments but leave them with a more 'natural' or machined finish which some players prefer, though it has no effect on the way the instrument plays.
I reckon because of it's age the surface finish has worn due to handling and these vessels show up, or it may have been cleaned using a degreasing agent or kept in a humid environment that can also dull the finish.
Former oboe finisher
Howarth of London
1998 - 2010
The opinions I express are my own.
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Author: Gordon (NZ)
Date: 2006-10-03 08:55
If you DON'T see these any of these grain marks, it is more than likely a sign that they, and other blemishes, have been filled with a gooey black filler. (And watch out if you use solvents such as alcohol or acetone on such finishes!)
Hence they are more likely to be visible on higher quality instruments (but not the very highest quality pieces of timber.
Selmer charges more for their unfilled, slightly brown-look instruments, I suppose because this necessitates use of the rarer, more blemish-free pieces of timber.
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Author: Dutchy
Date: 2006-10-03 13:07
Okay, so I'm interpreting this as "it's okay to go ahead and play it"? It's not going to suddenly explode with a ghastly Grand Canyon of a crack? Yes?
Okay. Thanks, all. 
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Author: Chris P
Date: 2006-10-03 13:18
I reckon you're safe to go ahead and play it, but if it hasn't been played in a while, play it in gently to begin with (as you would with a new clarinet) - no more that 30 mins at a time, and drying out each time - and always put back in the case after each playing.
Former oboe finisher
Howarth of London
1998 - 2010
The opinions I express are my own.
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Author: Dick
Date: 2006-10-03 18:44
What sorts of recorders are on the shelf with this poor, neglected clarinet?
Dick
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Author: Dutchy
Date: 2006-10-04 14:03
Nothing special, just a handful of plastic sopranos of varying quality (Dollar Store specials, a couple of Cambridges, a Yamaha), an alto and tenor plastic Yamaha, and a fairly nice pearwood (?) soprano and tenor, and a maple sopranino, alto, and bass, none by famous makers.
I bought the bass when I was a teenager, in 1971, for $100 at the local small-town music store, who didn't seem to know what it was, but there it was in the display case along with the kiddie harmonicas and the tambourines. I was already a recorder addict, bullying the entire rest of my family into learning to play just so I'd have someone to play with me. So I snapped it up, you better believe, had to go halfies with my mom on it, as being a teenager I didn't have the whole $100, but hey. I dragged her down there, pointed to it, said urgently, "THIS is a bass recorder." She humored me, bless her. And then she kindly converted a small suitcase to hold the four SATB wooden recorders together in one set with fitted compartments, using cardboard, foam, and fabric, which I still have, and which they still live in, up there on the shelf with Aunt Janet's clarinet.
The sopranino lives in its very own blue-velvet-lined wooden box that it came in. The plastic recorders all live in an old briefcase. No luxury accomodations for them. :D
They are also kept company by a two different size plastic fifes, a tin whistle, and one of those Aardvark plastic "sewer pipe" flutes, which I (once upon a time) learned to play well enough to be able to pick out Christmas carols on.
So it's an eclectic group.
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