 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: sfalexi
Date: 2007-03-22 17:12
I ordered and have at home a clarinetist's notebook. Haven't gotten a chance to use it, but I'm very interested in (when I return) buying clarinets that need some TLC and overhauling them to the best of my ability and reselling them. Just for fun and cash on the side (and be able to repair my own clarinets too). Should I just use that book for now, or is there anything else in addition to that book that I should have before I attempt a first overhaul?
Alexi
US Army Japan Band
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Author: BobD
Date: 2007-03-22 17:20
Go for it Alexi......but expect to have more fun than profit. The book that Ferrees still sells is good to have and if you can cull all the good hints from the pros that post here you will find them valuable.
Bob Draznik
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Author: sfalexi
Date: 2007-03-22 17:32
One day I hope to be able to paraphrase the great Vincini from The Princess Bride.
Someone will ask me about how good my instrument repairs are and I'll respond accordingly.
"You've heard of Moenigg?"
"yes"
"Chadash?"
"yes"
"Amateurs."
lol. Probably not, but I love that movie and it popped into my head.
I'll check out Ferrees. Thanks Bob.
Alexi
US Army Japan Band
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Author: tictactux ★2017
Date: 2007-03-22 18:04
> is there anything else in addition to that book that I should have before I
> attempt a first overhaul
Treat every instrument as if it were yours and you'd need it in the superbowl intermezzo. If it ain't worth to be done right, it ain't worth to be done at all. Ask questions here.
Better three good tools than twenty bad ones.
IMO experience can't be learned from books nor bought, but accuracy, diligency and common sense should be used even when adding a thumb rest.
Good luck!
--
Ben
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Author: Gordon (NZ)
Date: 2007-03-22 22:24
Currently the most respected book on wind repair is
THE COMPLETE WOODWIND REPAIR MANUAL - by Reg Thorp, available from http://www.napbirt.org/
Not cheap, but I suggest by far the best initial investment, even if just to find out how much you don't know!
Post Edited (2007-03-22 22:25)
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Author: Bill
Date: 2007-03-22 22:54
OMG - love the "Princess Bride" reference.
But if you have the Selmer mouthpiece with the Buffet clarinet,
Then CLEARLY I have the Selmer clarinet with a Vandoren mouthpiece.
But YOU are an experienced player, so that means that SURELY *I* must have the Buffet clarinet with the Backun mouthpiece.
Oh never mind!
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Author: bwilber
Date: 2007-03-23 11:17
I picked up a bunch of old clarinets from Ebay and have learned to fix them up myself because most of them just weren't worth the $230.00 it would cost to have them overhauled by my music shop. I ordered a basic kit from Music Medic to get started. The most important tool in my opinion is the leak light because a pad can look perfectly seated until you look at it with the leak light. I also found that having a perfectly overhauled clarinet right in front of you to go by is invaluable. You look and study every single key to see how it is supposed to look. You need to know how far the key is supposed to be lifted up from the base and having one that's been done by a professional that's sitting right in front of you, really helps. I find that adjusting the bottom 2 keys on the lower right hand keyed section to be the most difficult and after that, the rest isn't that hard to do except getting the bridge keys to seat can be difficult. You need lots of cork in different thicknesses both for the tenon corks and to make key silencers. I use a hot glue gun for seating the pads. For me, it takes about 10-15 hours or more to overhaul a clarinet and like the people ahead of me, I don't give up until it plays great which can take several days of playing and adjusting. With all of this time and expense in a clarinet, sometimes I will lose money when I go to sell them so it's true, you are doing it more for the fun of it, than trying to make money.
Bonnie Wilber
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Author: Lelia Loban ★2017
Date: 2007-03-23 11:47
I learned basic overhauling because I'm a yard sale and flea market junkie and kept finding more things than I could afford to have professionally set up, although I hasten to add that I think the services of good repair techs are worth every penny they charge. I started learning on clarinets with low resale value, to make sure I wouldn't ruin a higher-quality instrument with an ignorant mistake.
Lelia
http://www.scoreexchange.com/profiles/Lelia_Loban
To hear the audio, click on the "Scorch Plug-In" box above the score.
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Author: Chris P
Date: 2007-03-23 12:01
Alexi,
Seeing as you put "1st Cavalry Division Band" as your signature, has your band service got their own tech that could show you the basics?
Former oboe finisher
Howarth of London
1998 - 2010
The opinions I express are my own.
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Author: sfalexi
Date: 2007-03-23 16:18
Novel idea Chris P. I shoulda thought of it myself. He's on leave right now, but when he gets back, I'll see if he'll let me watch as he fixes and adjusts. He's a very good woodwind doubler (great sax player, very good clarinet player, outstanding jazz in both, and working on flute!) So my goal is to surpass him by the time I'm an E-7. It'll be tough. . .
But yeah. I'll ask him to start watching and learning a bit.
Alexi
US Army Japan Band
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Author: skygardener
Date: 2007-03-23 17:39
I would start with small repairs on 'working' clarinets before jumping into a true clunker. practicing with a playable clarinet first will help you guage your success- but starting with piece of junk will be frusterating. It's hard to imagine just how much work goes into restoring an unplayable instrument at first and even when you DO know there can still be a lot of frustrating moments (if not days!).
I read the book that Ferree's sells. very good, but some techniques are outdated. best is to get help from the repair person near you.
good luck.
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Author: LarryBocaner ★2017
Date: 2007-03-23 19:29
I never saw a first-rate tech set pads an a clarinet using a leak light! (OK for saxophones -- not clarinets). By "first-rate" tech I specifically reference Frank Kaspar, Lee Springer, Hans Moennig, Mark Jacobi, Bill Brannen -- all of whom have worked on my instruments over the years. I learned a lot about clarinet repair watching the late Leo Fink, solo saxophonist with the Marine Band back in the 1960's, who was an artist at instrument regulation -- as well as sax playing! Leo had attended a school of instrument repair at the Conn factory in Elkhart on the GI Bill after WWII.
The point I'm [clumsily] trying to make is that quality instrument repair is not for amateurs; it is as much an art as it is mechanics, and both aspects are important. When I see the butchery that passes for "professional" instrument repair in some local music stores and school districts I am totally revulsed: wrong size and thickness pads, bent rods, leaks from top to bottom, etc. And these are done by people who are paid to service instruments. For a tyro, even one guided by an excellent manual, to try to "fix" instruments is, to me, sheer folly!
One of the worst travesties I've seen recently was when the representative of a famous French manufacturer offered to make minor repairs gratis at a clinic at a local music store. He replaced a pad in one of my students' E11 (oops) leaving a gap that one could drive an SUV through. I had to spend a good part of the poor kids next lesson undoing the damage!
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Author: tictactux ★2017
Date: 2007-03-23 20:31
Skygardener,
...I disagree to some extent. The frustrating thing about a 'working' clarinet is that it might not be working any more or any better than before the overhaul. The beauty of a clunker is that you can salvage it from the dumpster. Just be sure you have a working specimen so that you can compare.
If it doesn't work after the first attempt, then try...
- Mouthpiece alone? check.
- Mouthpiece and barrel? check. (these were the easy parts)
- Mouthpiece, barrel and upper joint? (duh)
...and so on. It all has a lot to do with physics, a lot with watching/listening and thinking but not so much with snake oil and mumbling mantras.
Larry - we're not discussing "quality instrument repair" but "getting started". I think even masters like David, Chris, Gordon, Vytas and whomever I managed to forget started with their first job.
--
Ben
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Author: Chris P
Date: 2007-03-23 21:09
My first clarinet was a 1965 B&H Series 2-20 bought back in 1986 (when I'd only just turned 14) at a junk sale in Texas for $7.75, it was completely shot so I bought a set of 'off-the'shelf' pads (only the Ab/Eb pad was too large in diameter, though I managed to get it into the pad cup), some sheet cork and a tube of liquid shellac (Micro pad and cork cement) from a music shop in Tyler (plus a cheapo 'Goldentone' mouthpiece, cap, ligature and some Rico reeds and a Selmer care kit) - a set of screwdrivers in Radio Shack and had it all in bits on the dining room table back at my aunt and uncle's house where I shoved all the pads in and stuck the various bits of cork on, and got it working.
Back in the UK I lived down the road from a music shop where I was shown how to remove and fit needle springs, seat pads and regulate it, and I started working there a year later during the summer holidays, then after school and at weekends during term time to learn how to service and overhaul the other woodwinds, plus some brass and string instrument repairs.
I used this B&H 2-20 clarinet for three years until it got stolen while I was at college, but by then I had my Centered Tone Bb up and running anyway and was playing that full time, so it wasn't a huge loss - and I insured the B&H 2-20 for the same price as a Noblet Artist.
I still remember the serial number as well - 234701.
To be honest, I never planned to be in this line of work, but just kinda progressed into it without any radical decision making. The careers officer at school just showed us videos of unskilled jobs such as working for the council as a road sweeper, working in a textiles factory and other stuff like that, maybe they didn't have much hope for us as I was in the lowest set for English due to a poor end of year exam result (which I found out was down to bad marking from the examiner!) where I previously scored highly in English.
I like what I'm doing as I'm doing what I like doing. And if I didn't have job satisfaction in doing what I do, I wouldn't be doing it.
But for this kind of work as with any, you have to take pride and responsibility in what you do as you're responsible for a large part in a player's career - though you will have to be sure the players you do work for look after their instruments as you tell them to.
Former oboe finisher
Howarth of London
1998 - 2010
The opinions I express are my own.
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Author: stevensfo
Date: 2007-03-23 21:36
Wow Chris, your post brought back such memories! I was at school Late 70s/early 80s and the careers officer was exactly the same. Brain dead and only capable of repeating the same lines over and over again. Luckily I only met him once. We had an amazing Biology teacher - looked and sounded just like David Bellamy. He kept our dreams alive.
Pretty good guitarist too! ;-)
Steve
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Author: tictactux ★2017
Date: 2007-03-23 21:51
> I was at school late 70s... <snip>
Me too. Funny thing is - and I never gave it much thought - we only had one (!) music lesson per week, with kinda freaky teacher (I only later acknowledged that he was off the beaten path, off the sclerotic rail, somehow an ear-opener), and - gasp! - learning an instrument was sooo out of question there, I mean if you weren't in some sort of youth orchestra by birth or ancestry, you wouldn't have gotten in touch with such bourgeois pastimes.
The career person (duh, a nerd with a tie) suggested all possible and impossible things, just not what fit into the parents' budget or your abilities. I might be in Colani's footsteps today, but maybe it's better that way.
I was into model airplanes then. Not unlike clarinets, technically, just not that loud. ;-)
--
Ben
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Author: Chris P
Date: 2007-03-23 22:17
"We had an amazing Biology teacher - looked and sounded just like David Bellamy. He kept our dreams alive."
Funny you should say that - I left school at 15 right after exams and the highest grade I got was a GCSE grade B in Biology (we were the first year to take GCSEs back in '88), the Biology teacher was without doubt the best teacher there. I had a lot of respect for him - if I had the right qualifications I'd have liked to become a surgeon.
But during this time in the last year I was at school I concentrated on the subjects I liked (Biology, Music, Technical Drawing and English Language), and spent most of my spare time working evenings and weekends playing in bands and doing woodwind repairs.
Former oboe finisher
Howarth of London
1998 - 2010
The opinions I express are my own.
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Author: bwilber
Date: 2007-03-23 23:18
I am thinking that your reply about seating a pad with a leak light was in reference to my post and I am wondering where you got the idea that I was saying that you can seat a pad with a leak light? I was saying that a leak light is invaluable in dectecting leaks that you can't see by just looking at the pad. I never said anything about seating the pad with a leak light.
Bonnie Wilber
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Author: LarryBocaner ★2017
Date: 2007-03-24 13:42
Bonnie Wilber wrote: " I was saying that a leak light is invaluable in dectecting leaks that you can't see by just looking at the pad. I never said anything about seating the pad with a leak light."
Granted, Bonnie! But using a leak light is not a very good way to detect leaks any more than it is a tool for seating pads. A leak light will not tell you that a pad is "heavy" on one side and barely making contact with the "fly" of the tone hole on another. Sure, no light is coming through, but you can bet that air is! My advice: throw away your leak light and learn to use "feeler gauges" -- either the kind that you can purchase from a supply house or [my choice] little wedges of cigarette paper -- to see where your instrument is leaking and to help you set pads. Additionally a leak light will not tell you if air is escaping around the register key vent or the thumb "f" tube.
There seems to be a culture on this esteemed website of people re-inventing the wheel. It pains me to see this waste of time and good intentions!
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Author: David Spiegelthal ★2017
Date: 2007-03-24 20:02
Actually, leak lights do just about anything you need, IF you have opaque pads such as the leather ones I use. With bladder ('skin') pads, their translucence makes it very difficult to reliably see leaks with a light.
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Author: tictactux ★2017
Date: 2007-03-24 20:29
I like the bit of cassette tape attached to the rear end of the paint brush I use to scrub gunk out of around tone holes.
With two <10yo kids one has a lot of cassette tape bits...
--
Ben
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Author: Chris P
Date: 2007-03-24 20:57
I use a fluorescent leak light for saxes as they will show up leaks on several pads at once and regulation issues much easier than going around the entire circimference of each pad against it's own tonehole with a feeler gauge - that'd take years to do.
But on clarinets as the pads are relatively small, I use a feeler gauge cut from the finest cigarette papers so the tip is only around 2mm wide. Most leak lights generate heat, and that's one thing you don't want too much of in a clarinet for prolonged periods.
Even so, feeler gauges won't show up the tiny natural imperfections in the tonehole bedplaces which a lot of wooden clarinets have, even the top notch models, and multiply these imperfectons with the amount of toneholes and you have a joint that leaks like a sieve even though the pads test well with a feeler gauge.
Former oboe finisher
Howarth of London
1998 - 2010
The opinions I express are my own.
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Author: clarnibass
Date: 2007-03-25 05:45
"Currently the most respected book on wind repair is
THE COMPLETE WOODWIND REPAIR MANUAL - by Reg Thorp, available from http://www.napbirt.org/
Not cheap, but I suggest by far the best initial investment, even if just to find out how much you don't know!"
I will also recommend this book that Gordon recommended. As Godron said, after reading it you will see how much you don't knon, but then after actually starting to repair, you will see how much you still don't know that isn't in the book!
I don't use a light on clarinet. I use a feeler (I like rolling papers) and several other methods to find leaks. Leak light is great on saxophones. I actually prefer a smaller light and not a fluoroscent. Chris is right that a feeler will not find leaks caused by tiny tone hole imperfections that are sometimes even impossible to see.
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