 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Fred
Date: 2000-10-25 22:36
I've got my wife's old Bundy that is in that awkward position of being too good to throw away and not worth paying someone to repad/overhaul. I find myself considering attempting a repad/recork myself, more as a challenge than anything else. It's one of those "What have I got to lose" situations.
My questions to our repair friends are am I crazy to think I can do this, should I buy some resource to guide me through it, and what type of pads should I use? I promise not to go into the R-13 business, but this could be a learning experience.
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Author: Willie
Date: 2000-10-26 04:22
I say go for it. It's a good learnig experience and you already have a "sacrificial lamb" so to speak. The corks are fairly easy once you get the hang of it. I'd try just one pad at a time till you get familiar with all the keys, heights, etc. If you get in a jam you can always take it to the local tech. Those old Bundys and Vitos can make a good back up horn when fitted with the right MPc and lig.
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Author: Lelia
Date: 2000-10-26 13:18
I agree with Willie. Reapadding requires a lot of patience, especially the first few times, but old clarinet without a lot of market value is a great way to learn. It's not too likely you'll damage a plastic Bundy. IMHO it's wise to get a repair book. I think I would have been in major trouble without one. There are lots of little things I never would have guessed. Ferree's Tools, a sneezy sponsor, carries a reprint of the Erick Brand manual, which used to be the standard and IMHO is still a good manual, along with all the basic supplies. I also think it's worthwhile to order double-skin pads, not the cheaper single skins, which I think are a false economy. They're more expensive in the long run, because they don't hold up as well -- and the main cost is in the labor (in this case, your time), not the materials. Be sure to keep track of where all those itty-bitty pivot screws go! They get lost very easily and they're *not* all interchangeable. I made a small splurge on Ferree's sorting board, which has labelled holes for all the screws (showing the name and shape of the key for each screw). That simple gizmo has saved me a world of trouble.
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Author: Don Berger
Date: 2000-10-26 15:13
Willie and Lelia have just about covered any advice I can give, so with a bit of mechanical aptitude and a lot of patience, jump in and start learning as we semi-skilled and those expert repairers have done. Spend some time studying your more-efficient order of key-removal and re-assembly, When I remove a pivot screw or rod, I return it to its location, rather than use a "board" for temp. storage. I clean the bores, body, tenons and sockets with keys off [ordinarily], do any tenon recorking needed, then replace all or part of the pads, and re-assemble, oiling all pivot points as I go. After checking and solving pad leakage, positioning of pad to tone hole and its rise-key adjustment [some small corking usually required], I give it a comprehensive playing test back and forth with final key adjustment. Most of what I do is minor , student-type repairing, and have expert-repairer friends for the difficult things beyond my skills. I like to discuss the repair, care-suggestions and cl playing in general, suggesting some alternative fingerings with the student directly, not thru the parent only. I see I've gone on at length, but thats how and what I do. Its good to learn on a student horn, I started on my full Boehm, as I recall years ago, and enlisted skilled help and watched a pro at work!! Luck and best wishes, Don
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Author: rb
Date: 2000-10-26 19:21
Do it, Fred -
What've you got to lose, a few hours sleep? Everyone has to start somewhere. Some answers, beyond just general ones, aren't found in books. So, come back often as you get into it. Someone's bound to have suggestions to solve problems that will inevitably pop up as you proceed. It's pretty hard to do anything that'll hurt those tough ol' Bundys though....
Happy restoring :]
rb
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Author: Daniel Bouwmeester
Date: 2000-10-26 22:56
Yep....
Do it yourself all the way !
Make sure you get the right tools...
For the pads :
- small screwdriver
- pliers, to take the axes of the keys out, without damaging them..
- that special wax you use to glue the pads
- the pads... I use prestini pads... they're o.k. for sort of everything...
- a gaz burner.... or just a damn stupid lighter..
- and some teflon oil... or just any good oil..
For the corks :
- cork, pretty thin.... not more than a millimeter and a half thick... you can get some at your clarinet dealer...
-sandpaper
- sharp cutter
-glue that works for wood and metal... (I use two component epoxy glue usually .. so my corks never go away)
My method is as follows :
- take the key off, where the pad is fixed....
- Heat the pad cup to get the old pad out...
- clean the inside.. that means get rid of the old wax....
- put some new wax in...
***This section goes very fast :
- heat the pad cup again..
- put the right pad in, not pressing to much.
- put the key back on the clarinet the fastest you can, so that you get the key on before the wax has hardened
-then still very fast... press the key on the hole with your finger until the height seems right.
- dismantle the key..... put some oil on the axe... put it back on the clarinet..
-When the pads seem right for you... check if the air is not leaking..... put your fingers over the holes of the part of the clarinet you're working on... press your hand on the lower part of the clarinet (the bore) and suck on the other side of the bore.... then..... lift a finger fast..... and it should make a "pop" !
To see which pad is leaking.... blow in the clarinet instead of sucking.... and hear where the air is leaking...
For the recorking..... play a chromatic scale without blowing in the baby... and listen to where a noise could come from..... when you find out... put a cork on where the noise comes from... that means
- Take the key off
- cut a piece sorta the right size...
-glue it on it's place.....
-cut bits off that are too much....
-sand a bit everywhere.. so it looks smooth....
-check out the height of the cork (it musn't influence on the mechanics.. it's just to make it quieter)..
If you wanna make your baby even quieter.. youcan try putting silicon instead of corks... But that's another affair..
Anyway.. that's how I do it on my babies... and so far it has worked pretty well.... Even the engineers at buffet were impressed when I went there to make spring adjustments..
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Author: Mark Charette
Date: 2000-10-26 23:12
There are detailed instructions for pads & tenon corks in the Equipment/Maintenance section here on Sneezy.
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Author: Bill
Date: 2000-10-26 23:37
Mark Wrote:
There are detailed instructions for pads & tenon corks in the Equipment/Maintenance section here on Sneezy.
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These instructions say to use French cement or glue. I've never heard of French cement. Does it have another name? I've used stick shellac for flute pads. Is this used with clarinet pads? Daniel mentioned wax. Is this like candle or bees wax, and is this an option?
I took a one week course in padding flutes. It convinced me I didn't have the patience or skill to do this type of work. Wish it weren't the case. For me, I'd rather spend my spare time playing. Is the clarinet less tedious to pad and adjust?
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Author: Willie
Date: 2000-10-27 04:07
The French glue is mostly called French shellac. You can buy in the stick form or as a powder. I think this is pretty much the standard glue used by all the big manufactures and most techs. For the corks I use plain ol' Weldwood contact cement with no problems.
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Author: ron b.
Date: 2000-10-27 08:47
Bill,
French cement is what it's called. I don't know whether it's called by another name except, perhaps, padding cement. It's stick shellac with chalk added (to match the white pads I suppose). Stick (or flake) shellac, either amber or clear works just as well, if not better. Some folks suggest using glue gun stick glue. Okay. I've never tried it but, why not? Pad and Cork cement, the stuff in a tube, is *not* recommended by any tech I've talked to.
Clarinets are far easier to pad than flutes. Clarinets practically seat themselves in comparison - in my meager experience.
Wax? This is *not* an option. Is it an attempt at humor.... (?)
I don't mean to be abrupt.... well, yes, I do --- pull yourself together :|
I think you'd be far better off, Bill, to follow Marks advice and go to the Equipment/Maintenance section. It's better than most manuals I've seen.
ron b.
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Author: Bill
Date: 2000-10-27 10:04
Ron B. Wrote:
Wax? This is *not* an option. Is it an attempt at humor.... (?)
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I don't remember where, but I'd seen wax mentioned for flute pads. Then, I saw it again in this thread. I don't remember the advantages/disadvantages, except maybe that it looked better than brown stick shellac. The French shellac with chalk added would serve this purpose.
Ron B. Wrote:
I think you'd be far better off, Bill, to follow Marks advice and go to the Equipment/Maintenance section. It's better than most manuals I've seen.
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Yes, that's where I went, and saw the term French shellac. The steps looked less tedious than flute, and I wanted to confirm that I wasn't missing something. I might give a clarinet a try, if I can find a good one (or any one to) to "work" on.
Thanks to all for the excellent info in this thread
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Author: Gordon (New Zealand)
Date: 2000-10-27 13:49
I use French cement. In my experience the glue gun glue that Le Blanc uses has adhesive properties much the same as cheese, and pads commonly fall off after a few years. It does resemble a gooey, semi-solid wax so perhaps that is what the reference to wax is all about.
I believe pads must be positioned much more carefully than the method above which will almost always result in pads closing tightly at the back but unreliably at the front. You could experiment with that method but using a shim of appropriate thickness between the pad and the tone hole.
I install pads sitting as close to perfect in the key cup and then correct the alignment of the key cup with an array of special tools I have bought and made. Why assume that the key cups were ever aligned correctly (with respect to the particular pads used) with the tone holes. In my experience this is rare indeed! The most obvious symptom is in new instruments which almost always have the F/C and E/B pads leaking at the front unless the 'pinky' is pressed quite hard.
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Author: Daniel Bouwmeester
Date: 2000-10-28 08:58
WHEN I was saying wax... I meant that stick of hard red or orange stuff..... to put in the pad cups..... by scraping off bits, and melting it.
I just didn't know how it was called...
I'm not using the wrong stuff, because it's Carlos, the engineer from Buffet Crampon factories at Mantes la Ville that gave it to me when I went there last time..... And who uses this stuff.. for guyz like Giora Feidmann, Michel Arignon, Paul Meier... etc..
This "hard thing" is good, because it enables you to reglue a loose pad just by heating up the pad cup with a lighter.....
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