 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Sue
Date: 2003-03-01 15:58
My instrument is a LeBlanc and its my first wooden clarinet. From the research I've done it seems it was made sometime in the 60's. I understand how to oil the bore but how about the outside surface?. I know there is a outside finish but the grain on mine is slightly raised (you can see it not feel it) and I have very dry hands, I do use alittle hand lotion.
Should I be concerned about this?.
Thanks for any help,
Sue
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Author: Peter
Date: 2003-03-01 17:49
Frankly, I'm one of those people who figure that if you do something bad for a pad or cork, a reed, or even a currently available mouthpiece, what the heck, they can be easily enough replaced. Where you found one, you can certainly find more and so what. But not so much an instrument, that's a little more expensive and difficult to choose in some ways.
I don't know how hand lotion might affect the wood or hardware of a clarinet, but I would venture to say that if it's little enough and has been soaked into the skin, it *might* be O.K.
On the other hand, I, personally, would still have a tendency to wash my hands very well before handling the instrument, as I would also think that a very little of anything detrimental to the wood or hardware finish is still detrimental, in whatever capacity or extent.
There is a sort of petrified pine that is found on NC flatlands (the only place I've ever seen it) and I've heard it called "lighter-knot." It is so hard that it's guaranteed to almost instantly dull any quality of steel you might care to use for cutting it, but it's also perpetually soaked in a resin that smells like pine oil, and rather nicely, if I may say so. I love the stuff.
It catches fire easier and burns better than a rag soaked in gasoline and, most especially so, if it's first splintered.
Anyway, someone I know accidentally etched fingerprints into a Leblanc Concerto by handling it after handling lighter-knot and getting the resin on his fingers. We are sure it was that, because in the winter, he always used lighter-knot to start the logs in his "Army Cannon Heater" (pot bellied stoves dating back to the horse Army, and which were found in many old, abandoned buildings at Fort Bragg as late as the middle 1970s.)
After we noticed the etchings, he would wash his hands religiously after handling lighter-knot and never got another etching on his clarinet. (I used to tease him by telling him that now he could get girls up to his apartment by promising to show them his clarinet etchings. He didn't much appreciate it, especially since it reminded him of what he did to his instrument.)
Once in a while (anywhere from a year to two or three years, depending on the instrument and it's "established" needs) I like to take them to a reputable tech to have them stripped and oiled, inside and out.
Some think this is excessive, but it's what I do and, so far, it's worked for me well enough.
Peter
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