 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Elkwoman46
Date: 2007-02-12 17:25
Hi, everyone. First, thank you everyone for helping me and gave so much advice about getting my Normandy 4 cleaned up.
I did my best, but it still is not perfect. Would love to know how to get rid of another person's odor therein. LOL Still I did my best thus far.
But anyway, I love it, amazed. Realized one thing...I need to get larger "size" reeds for the Vandoren mouthpiece it has. So will do that.
And ABOUT THE CASE. I believe this is the original case for the Normandy 4 because it seems to be on eBay a lot with many of the Normandy 4 posted, but not all.
The case is black, on the handle is "Vito" and the latches are on the sides.
I want to let you all know what it looks like inside so you know in case you are wondering if you dare take it apart for cleaning. Mine was so old that it was already coming apart, so here is what it is....
The bottom that holds all the clarinet pieces, is actually a foam base that looks much like you would find when you buy a television and the white foam that protects the television in shipment, except this foam is a bit more dense, but not too far off from this kind of stuff. The velvety fur is glued onto this formed piece of foam. The barrel piece sits straight up in the foam so the foam actually has a whole right through where the barrel sits in. The barrel basically sits on a piece of fur that is glued to the bottom of the case.
To the left side of this foam is a place for putting stuff, like the oil, reeds, so a piece of fur had been neatly glued down into this side of the case. This piece of fur has a strip of cardboard on one side that has been glued onto the fur. This one side is folded over the cardboard to make a clean edge that is visible which is glued to the case on the left side of the case. The rest of the fur disappears underneath the foam. There were two pieces of dividers that belonged to this compartment, having a strip of fur covering part of each piece. In my case these two pieces were just loose and had obviously been laying in there for some time (dividing nothing). I would imagine that these could be glued wherever desired in the compartment area to hold the reeds, etc, more securely.
The "weirdest" thing about this whole thing is the hole where the barrel part sits. The fur does not cover all of the hole and only the bottom of the hole has protection. When I got it, I could see the white foam of the cylinder of the foam showing...so I don't know what was covering the foam originally in this place. It could have been just black tape or some thin piece of fabric that filled the walls of the cylinder inside...I don't know.
The top of the case had a padded piece of covered fur. The under side has a cardboard. The velvet covers the padding and is glued down on the back side of the cardboard (which is behind the padding). One side of this cardboard had a strip of thick tape to secure that side of the fur fabric (the other three sides of this rectanglar piece was just glued down to the cardboard). This whole rectanglar piece basically was loose already when I got it. The padding material inside??? some kind of fill has no definite shape.
It turned out that I was able to wash everything. I still have the top padded piece drying since yesterday (it got really water logged even after use of towels), but nothing was ruined or destroyed after carefully washing it.
The inside of the plastic case has quite a bit of glue residue that remains tacky, which will only help when I reglue everything back in. This whole case washed up easily. It is a strong plastic I believe.
While I could not get all the icky stuff off the velvet fur where the clarinet parts lay, it looks absolutely gorgeous compared to the way it did when I got it. Some of the fur as you can imagine is gone, but still overall quite useable.
Based on advice I got, I will probably glue in all the washed pieces with contact cement.
If you find yourself one day washing something like this, have plenty of towels to spunge up the water logged padded piece, all the others are not so bad at all, but get the majority of the water out right away and it will be completely dry in no time.
I used an old toothbrush to gently swish at the fur pieces. I used Dawn detergent deluted in a 409 bottle for spraying. Oh, those pieces of fur pieces that were glued onto the case inside all came off easily.
It was time for this overhaul for sure.
Hope this helps to any wanting to wash out an old clarinet case. These were my discoveries when I cleaned out this one.
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Author: stevesklar
Date: 2007-02-12 17:59
the normandy cases changed frequently throughout their lifetime.
my N4 has a case just as you describe, in every detail - not sure if yours is a black plastic (kinda clamshell - not totally square) vs fabric variety.
you may have an easier time with a spray adhesive versus swabbed contact cement all over the place to reinstall the fabric.
here's a pic of my N4 - all original from 1978 ... and you can look at the opened case
http://www.saxmaniax.com/steve/Normandy4.jpg
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Stephen Sklar
My YouTube Channel of Clarinet Information
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Author: Elkwoman46
Date: 2007-02-12 18:24
Hello Steve!
Yep, that appears to be identical to mine, except yours is in much better shape. But after cleaning, much improved.
And your Normandy 4 looks very much like mine. From the serial number, mine appears to be a 1974.
Thanks so much for the idea of spray adhesive.
So, what do you think of your Normandy 4?
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