 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: StevenWayne
Date: 2017-04-26 20:51
Sorry I was so effusive over my last rebuild. I have found a new hobby and I'm excited over it.
I'm rebuilding a Martin Freres, and one of the tone holes has a tiny ding right on the rim, and the match stick is pointing to it in the first photo. I assume it is large enough to cause a leak (I'm using double skin pads). Question is, how would you fix this? Thanks for any advice.
Secondly, I am looking for an original part and that is the guard for the two trill keys, with the diamond-shaped base, like this one shown in the other photos. I can probably buy a parts clarinet off ebay or whatever, but if someone has the part and wants to sell it, thanks very much.
Post Edited (2017-04-26 21:10)
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Author: Chris P
Date: 2017-04-27 01:29
You can fix the chip in the tonehole by first cleaning it out using a scalpel and then degrease it with alcohol or solvent. Then once that has been given time to evaporate, build it up with a layer of superglue and then sprinkle granadilla dust onto it. Then continue to add more superglue and wood dust to build it up so it's higher than the surrounding tonehole rim.
Then using a tonehole topper machined from brass (or any similar metal) rod around 11mm diameter with the face machined flat and abrasive glued to it with superglue (as superglue sticks to metal much better than with some plastics), use that to level the tonehole and then use the scalpel to tidy up any remaining filler by scraping it down to blend in with the bevel.
If the tonehole rim is now too thick from levelling (over 0.5mm thick), open up the top to a depth of 0.5mm to widen the extreme top of the tonehole and make the rim sharper (but still slightly flat around the top and not razor sharp like Buffets as that will only tear up the pads).
To add stability to the tonehole topper, you can fit a pilot to the centre (or machine a pilot on the face of the rod) to keep it in place when levelling the tonehole. You're best making several pilots of all different diameters so you can use the same topper but different diameter pilots to suit different diameter toneholes. I made several pilots all mounted onto small screws that screw into a threaded hole in the tonehole topper so they can be changed easily.
As far as the trill key guide goes, you're best hard soldering (silver soldering) a piece of nickel silver sheet of the same or similar gauge onto it and filing it to match the opposite side.
Former oboe finisher
Howarth of London
1998 - 2010
The opinions I express are my own.
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Author: Steven Ocone
Date: 2017-04-27 02:12
Chris's method is good. Grenadilla dust is nice but not necessary. I don't bother with pilots. I would just leave the key guard as is.
Steve Ocone
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Author: StevenWayne
Date: 2017-04-27 04:03
Thanks very much for your explanations. Looks like I need to make some tools.
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Author: modernicus
Date: 2017-04-30 22:19
I got the set of Ferree's 3 tone hole chip tools, the one that come with the handles-works well to cut a slight inside bevel when filling in dinged up tone holes or removing small chips. So far I've just sanded the outside bevel by hand with decent results. I also do this as a hobby, so still learning and about to try to rebuild some severely torn up tone holes. Maybe not quite bad enough to require complete replacement, but fairly bad in a few instances. Wouldn't you want the outside countersink cutter or sander to have a reverse cone bevel to it? I'm looking at the cutters from Ferree's as well and they appear to be shaped like this. Even a couple cutters and arbors start to add up, though, for a hobbyist. The clarinet I'm working on might be worth the investment.
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Author: Chris P
Date: 2017-04-30 23:33
Sanding the bevel will do the trick, but use a fine abrasive to finish with to achieve a smooth finish. For small nicks or chips, I use a scalpel to shape and blend them into the bevel instead of sanding as the blade both cuts and burnishes the filler.
I've just done this on a Selmer Signet clarinet that had small chips and surface vessels running across several toneholes, so a combination of filling, levelling, using spherical reamers to open up the inside edge and using a scalpel to scrape the filler down on the bevels to make it invisible has done the job.
You want your toneholes to be as perfect as you can manage so any kind of pad can be seated onto them - cork pads being the ones that require nothing less than perfectly level and blemish free toneholes. If you can seat cork pads onto them, then they're suitable for all other types of pads.
The tonehole cutters are ideal if you're bushing toneholes on cracked joints where the cracks run through toneholes and filling cracked toneholes isn't a long term solution as they can leak. Tonehole bushes will buy the player some time as the crack shouldn't run across the bush as it's either made of plastic or ebonite which doesn't have grain like wood does.
Bassoon repairers use inverted conical tonehole refacing/dressing tools - they're made from metal, wood or plastic with a concave conical face so abrasive paper can be glued to it and that will sand down the bevel on rough, rebuilt or bushed toneholes to blend them into the existing bevel.
Former oboe finisher
Howarth of London
1998 - 2010
The opinions I express are my own.
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Author: StevenWayne
Date: 2017-05-03 01:02
Thank you all for the ideas and help. I was able to fix the ding on the tone hole with a dab of super glue gel after cleaning the area with solvent, then lightly sanding and shaping, and finishing it with 2500 grit. That fine of grit more polishes or burnishes than removes material. The ding disappeared and no leak!
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