 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Liz
Date: 2000-01-10 19:17
Help me please someone!! i left my clarinet out for a few days and now i can't get it apart! it is a wooden prologue and it is stuck at the part the the mouthpiece is joined to and the top part with all the keys. i have pulled and pulled it but it won't budge! i could take it to a menders but i have a very, i repeat vey limited budget. please, someone out there must be able to help!!!
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Author: paul
Date: 2000-01-10 19:38
It sounds like your upper joint's cork expanded a bit. Don't panic. You have some reason for concern about a store ripping you off for this problem. However, before you do any damage to your horn, take off whatever pieces you gracefully and gently can and take the complete horn to a good shop for a little emergency repair. A pro's repair at this stage with nothing broken costs much less than trying to get a smashed or broken horn back into working condition.
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Author: Barry
Date: 2000-01-10 20:17
But if it is not the corks: lets say you used it and did not break it down and clean it - then the wood could have expanded. This is worse than the cork problem. Heat may also have caused it to expand. If heat, you can try putting it in the freezer. This would shrink the parts and you should be able to pull them apart. Good luck.
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Author: J.Butler
Date: 2000-01-10 20:51
Caution: Don't leave it in the freezer for a long period of time. Try 30 minutes and check again each half hour. Yes, it does work to control the humidity and help shrink the tenon but is usually not a permanent fix. If it persists take it to a tech.
John
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Author: Don Berger
Date: 2000-01-10 20:53
We just had a go-around on your problem, go to "List Older Messages" , under those go to "Stuck Tight", lots of good advice. Don
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Author: Ken Shaw
Date: 2000-01-10 21:09
Liz wrote:
-------------------------------
Help me please someone!! i left my clarinet out for a few days and now i can't get it apart! it is a wooden prologue and it is stuck at the part the the mouthpiece is joined to and the top part with all the keys. i have pulled and pulled it but it won't budge! i could take it to a menders but i have a very, i repeat vey limited budget. please, someone out there must be able to help!!!
Liz -
Don't panic. You have a serious problem but not a fatal one, and it can be fixed easily by an experienced repair shop. However, regardless of budget, and even if you have to have a Twinky for dinner, take the instrument to a repair shop right away. If all that's needed is to get the barrel separated from the mouthpiece and the top joint, the cost is most likely to be zero. As a sign that we still live in a sexist society, if the repairman is over 50, a tear or two from you wouldn't hurt.
Whatever you do, don't heat or freeze the instrument! Treat it as gently as possible. The wood is under a lot of strain, and the last thing you want is to change anything.
The problem may be a swollen cork, but it's more likely that the sockets in the barrel have shrunk. This shrinkage is worst at the bottom of the sockets, and so the places where it binds are the little rims of wood (or hard rubber) at the very top of the upper joint tenon/bottom of the mouthpiece tenon. It's tempting to file off some wood/rubber at the end of the tenon, which is much easier to do than enlarge the sockets. NEVER let anyone do this, since the tenon never enlarges, and any change means that it will never fit a standard size barrel socket.
The repair must always be made with a reamer that enlarges and trues up the socket all the way to the bottom.
Did you buy the instrument new? If so, it may still be under warranty. Even if it isn't, take it back to where you got it and complain that this shouldn't happen and they should fix it even if the warranty has run out. If you have a teacher who sends students to that store, they wil almost certainly make small repairs to keep that flow of business.
Good luck.
Ken Shaw
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Author: Mario
Date: 2000-01-10 21:27
I can only concur with Ken. DO NOT PUT YOUR INSTRUMENT IN THE FREEZER. Wood in a regularly played instrument is actually quite moist. It is filled with microscopic bubbles full of water. Water expands as it freezes. This expension can destroy the structure of the wood and leave the horn sounding terrible even if nothing visible has been done to it (essentially, the wood grain gets enlarged internally and the wood becomes like a big sponge). This is why one must never expose a wood clarinet to minus 0C (or minus 32F) temperature. This is why I use a winter case, inclosed in a back pack, covered with thermal blankets, and slightly warmed-up with those little pillows that you microwave to get heat. This is also why I warm up my car before travelling with my clarinet. Call me fanatic, but I had a brand new Selmer 9 clarinet cracking on me 30 years ago as I went to catch the bus, learned my lesson and (touch wood) never had a problem again. In the freezer? I shiver just at the tought of it!
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Author: Dee
Date: 2000-01-10 23:46
Liz,
Since you are on a limited budget, it is even more important that you have a professional fix this. He/she can do it quickly and inexpensively as the others have mentioned. If you try to do this yourself and damage it, you'll really blow your budget out of the water.
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Author: Anne
Date: 2000-01-11 00:50
I can't really help you with your problem, but I too own a Selmer Prologue and this problem happens to me quite frequently. I'm sure it's some sort of weird curse because this rarely happens to my friends that own Buffets. Either that, or we really suck at taking apart our horns! I've learned my lesson a few times, and something that might help in the future is putting orange peels in your case. I think it absorbs extra moisture and reduces swelling or something bizzarre like that. Anyway, good luck, and you have my sympathy.
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