 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: stevensfo
Date: 2006-02-16 07:54
I've been offered an old student oboe at a ridiculously low price and have just discovered the reason is that it has no cork whatsoever around the tenons and requires repadding.
Guess there's no such thing as a free lunch..etc!
I'm tempted to buy it to satisfy my curiosity about these instruments, and I was wondering how oboe repairs compare with the clarinet.
If I can repad and recork a clarinet, should I be able to do the same with an oboe?
Now, how to use my clarinet mouthpiece with it? ;-)
Steve
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Author: sylvangale
Date: 2006-02-16 08:12
I think you are better off renting a student oboe and seeing if you take well to it. There are relatively inexpensive oboes on WWandBW that are fully functional should you decide to continue.
Student oboes often resell at a very low cost due to lack of interest. I picked up an almost new condition Yamaha 211 for $400 a while back and even picked up a vintage Loree for just $600.
Save your money. Use it for rental and private instruction.
Regards,
Stephen
(edit: regards)
♫ Stephen K.
Post Edited (2006-02-16 08:13)
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Author: stevensfo
Date: 2006-02-16 09:49
-- "I think you are better off renting a student oboe and seeing if you take well to it." --
Sorry, I didn't explain very well. I have no intention of learning to play it seriously - though I might have a try - who knows?
As part of my voluntary work, I buy old instruments, repair them myself - or with the help of local repairers - and sell them, profit-free, to kids from 'disadvantaged' families. (Is that the correct PC expression these days?)
Schools here don't have the same cheap rental schemes that exist in some other countries.
I was really more interested in how easy an oboe is to repair compared to a clarinet. I'm not sure, but I don't think our repair guy touches them.
Thanks,
Steve
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Author: Malcolm Martland
Date: 2006-02-16 10:39
stevensfo wrote:
>Now, how to use my clarinet mouthpiece with it? ;-)
I remember a tiny "clarinet" mouthpiece to play oboes using a single reed fashioned out of a clarinet reed. Made a terrible noise. Someone gave me one when I was at school - but I long since lost it.
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Author: David Spiegelthal ★2017
Date: 2006-02-16 11:36
Oboe is a somewhat more complicated beast than clarinet, and getting the regulation right is about ten times harder. Having played some oboe as a kid, I decided last year to get back into it, and picked up an older Cabart oboe on The Internet Auction Site Whose Name Shall Not Be Mentioned. I gave it a complete overhaul while re-learning to play oboe --- challenging to say the least. It did turn out okay, though, and I had the thing played on by some real oboists and they told me it was pretty good. After playing it for a few months to get some "oboe chops" back, I sold the Cabart and picked up a slightly more modern Malerne oboe, which needed less work than the first one, and tuning/regulating it was much easier because this time I actually understood what all the mechanisms did, and their effects on response and intonation! Plus, I could actually play-test the thing and assess it better than the first go-around.
I guess the bottom line is: If your clarinet repair skills are well-developed, and you can play oboe a bit, then oboe repairs/overhauls are feasible. If neither of those two conditions exists, then you're probably biting off more than you can chew.
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Author: Chris P
Date: 2006-02-16 14:08
If you can overhaul an oboe well, you can take on anything.
Make sure all the tonehole bedplaces are flawless, if not then fill in the chips and level them so they're absolutely smooth, or if you can, re-cut the lot.
How are you at cork padding? I personally cork pad pretty much everything -and use white leather pads on the three large pad cups (or two on older Loree/Cabart/Yamaha/Selmer USA). If it's a prestige model I'm inclined to cork pad the lot.
On the perforated fingerplates, cork pad these, and then cut the hole through the middle after they're seated by making up a sharp hole punch out of a piece of tubing slightly wider than the hole in the fingerplate.
Here are some venting suggestons:
3rd 8ve and top fingerplate - barely moving at all, but only just opening.
1st and 2nd 8ve keys and trills - 1.5mm max
Cross F key 1.5mm max
Main action on both joints - 2mm
Low C, B and Bb - 3mm
Also, regulate the screw on the low C key so it closes the RH middle fingerplate down, but not closing it completely, and adjust this to get the top C# working. And make sure the RH middle fingerplate closes the F vent - RH 3 will close it in it's open position, but RH 2 has to close it when it's pressed, otherwise you won't get anything lower than E.
Make sure the RH 1 fingerplate has play between it and the conservatiore bar on the top joint - before it actuates it and also some play at the other end (that links the Bb key) to ensure the C and Bb keys (on the top joint) open fully and RH 1 isn't prevented from closing. You will probably have to bend some keys around - especially the bell key to regulate it with the low B key - the screw adjustment on the outside of the low B/Bb key takes out the double action here, the other screw for the Eb spring makes sure there IS double action between the Eb spring and the LH Eb key, so the Eb key isn't held open.
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Author: stevensfo
Date: 2006-02-16 14:30
Wow! Thanks for the excellent info Chris.
How are you with saxophones? ;-)
Steve
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Author: FrankM
Date: 2006-02-16 14:52
Why does the oboe have so many screw controlled adjustments ?...compared to a clarinet , I mean.
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Author: Chris P
Date: 2006-02-16 14:56
Steve,
I love working on saxes - especially the classics (King Super 20s, old Conns and of course, the Selmers - the BA, SBA and MkVI), but I like Yamahas as they're a doddle to work on as well - all those adjusting screws! That's what I want to see - it makes our lives easy.
But in all honesty, oboes are the most challenging instruments to work on, and when faced with a full German spec oboe to overhaul - you will definitely know you're being tried! I had to rebuild a fully automatic Marigaux that was worn out and split - it needed new pillars for the top joint main action as the originals were worn out inside so the keys moved in every direction.
I think as you've got a student model you can learn the basics on this, but as they go up in price, more and more keywork and extra mechanisms are added - a bit like German clarinets.
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Author: Bob Phillips
Date: 2006-02-16 15:38
I just hauled a wonderful oboe in to my tech for a colleague. That oboe was full of extra keys, and it seemed that everything had a screw adjustment. The instrument had just quit playing anything in the lower joint; and the owner and I could not find the flaw.
The tech sucked on the upper joint (obviously familiar with the open tone holes that had to be forced closed. No leaks. Then, he did the same with the lower joint. No leaks. With his quick little brain thus infused with data, he took the horn to his bench, and in 14-seconds it was playing again.
The leak test told him that the pads were OK on both joints. That the horn didn't blow when together told him that the problem was in the bridge mechanism between the upper and lower joints. That bridge is much more complex than it is on my articulated G# clarinet, so it took him like 12 seconds to figure it out and 2-seconds to straighten out the bend.
To my mind, it could be darned frustrating to figure out why an oboe isn't working so that corrections can be made.
Good luck, though!
And good work with your charity program. BRAVO
Bob Phillips
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Author: Chris P
Date: 2006-02-16 15:49
The other thing that stops them working, even though both joints are airtight is the trill linkage - if the bottom joint C-D trill link has been bent up it will hold the top joint C-D trill cup open - so be sure there's some double action between the top and bottom joint connections.
An easy way to test the F#-G# adjustment is by closing RH 1 and test the adjustment onto the top of the G# cup with a feeler gauge, as well as the closure of RH 1.
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Author: sylvangale
Date: 2006-02-16 17:17
"I was really more interested in how easy an oboe is to repair compared to a clarinet. I'm not sure, but I don't think our repair guy touches them."
It is a rare thing to find a general instrument repair person that can adjust an oboe properly. They may repad, recork, or fix cracks fine and dandy, but because many cannot actually play the instrument the adjustments are horrid.
A great adjustment guide is Carl Sawicki's guide to oboe adjustment.
As you cannot play the oboe and have not history with it. I can only imagine learning one that isn't properly adjusted to be... nightmarish.
My main fear is that an oboe in good adjustment turns people off to playing it and you may find an out of adjusment oboe to be even more discouraging.
Starting off on a well-adjusted oboe you may sound like a dying duck, but starting off on a mal-adjusted oboe you may sound like you're attempting to murder one.
Good luck though. It is a very lovely instrument... in time.
Regards,
Stephen
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Author: Chris P
Date: 2006-02-16 17:57
On a Marigaux cor anglais (full Gillet) there's around 30 adjusting screws, Howarth cors have around 22, but on an old ring key model there's obviously a lot less.
But the fully automatic octaves on oboes is a bugger to set up, and even then it's not exactly a reliable system as there's absolutely no margin for error designed into it, compared to the relatively simple design Selmer have used on their saxes for aeons - adopted by pretty much every sax maker, from Chinese dogs to top pro models.
[ Chris P. is an employee of Howarth's and did not disclose such until much later. My apologies for missing this and letting Chris P. misuse this BBoard. Mark Charette ]
Former oboe finisher
Howarth of London
1998 - 2010
The opinions I express are my own.
Post Edited (2006-02-17 14:24)
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Author: wwinds
Date: 2006-02-17 00:55
The adjusting screws on an obe make the actual adjustments easy to do. The difficult part is that it must be absolutely airtight. A clarinet will tolerate a small leak and still play but an oboe will not. An oboe has cork pads at least on the aperture keys and sometimes others as well. I usually put them on the octave keys as a matter of practice because they wear better. The difficulty with cork pads is that they are hard, unlike bladder pads used on clarinet. This makes them totaly unforgiving when it comes to wobble on the hinges rods, or end play between the posts. This makes the oboe a more demanding instrument to repair than a clarinet. They can be done of course, but it takes a lot of patience. Take your time, get a cup of coffee, turn on the stereo and enjoy it.
Repairing brass and woodwind instruments
www.whisperingwindsrepair.netfirms.com
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Author: David Spiegelthal ★2017
Date: 2006-02-17 02:04
I was able to do both my oboe overhauls with leather pads on most of the keys (blasphemy!), having long ago figured out a good way to make leather pads with holes in the middle (e.g. for alto and bass clarinet 'half-hole' keys). Easier to seat than cork.
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