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 Cold weather and clarinets
Author: john4256 
Date:   2011-12-18 14:17

I have been asked to play carols in the open air next weekend.

I have a pair of Boosey and Hawkes Symphony 10 10's. Will the icey weather affect the wood? I have had them since new 50 years ago and I wouldn't want to damage them now! I think I read somewhere (maybe even on this board) that there might be a danger of the wood cracking when they are exposed to near zero temperatures?

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 Re: Cold weather and clarinets
Author: kilo 
Date:   2011-12-18 14:23

Ooh . . . I'd recommend against it. Just having a wooden clarinet exposed to freezing temps isn't all that bad, but blowing moist warm air into it is asking for trouble. Can you beg, borrow, or steal a plastic or hard rubber instrument?

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 Re: Cold weather and clarinets
Author: William 
Date:   2011-12-18 16:12

If they have not cracked by now--after 50 yrs--you are probably "safe". But I still wouldn't want to risk cod weather damage and instead use a plastic clarinet--or refuse the gig. At the very least, tuning is going to be a major problem not to mention frozen fingers. Personally, I refuse to play in inclimate weather of any sort, rain, snow, extreme heat, etc.

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 Re: Cold weather and clarinets
Author: Bob Phillips 
Date:   2011-12-18 17:54

I'm with Kilo.
Cold outside, warm air inside.

I've got questionable strength and thermal expansion data for clarinet woods, but calculate that clarinets are at risk of breaking when the inside temperature gets about 40-deg F above the outside.

The inside tries to expand as it warms, and the outside is shrunk because of the cold, and the swelling inside stretches the outside so much that it can pull the wood apart between the grain lines of the wood.

Rent a plasticky for your outdoors gig.

Bob Phillips

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 Re: Cold weather and clarinets
Author: Paul Aviles 
Date:   2011-12-18 17:57

NO NO NO !!!!!

No wood is safe from cracking (as "kilo" states) under extreme temperature shifts between the inside and the outside of the horn. Unless you're prepared to buy a new Large Bore Eaton, DON'T DO IT !!!!

Borrow a friend's Greenline or plastic horn.



.............Paul Aviles



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 Re: Cold weather and clarinets
Author: davyd 
Date:   2011-12-18 18:21

Don't even think about it! Get something from a pawnshop. If you have connections at a school, borrow something from them, now that marching band season is over. Don't take your good instruments outdoors in chilly weather, whatever you do.

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 Re: Cold weather and clarinets
Author: Claire Annette 
Date:   2011-12-19 02:33

27 years ago, I was asked to play an obligato part with a men's quartet in December in a town square in Austria. My clarinet teacher never told me about the danger to my R-13 if it was played in near-freezing temperatures. I have the pinned crack on my old clarinet to show for what occured.

Please find a plastic or hard rubber clarinet to play on...or sing the carols! It's not worth risking your wooden clarinet over.

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