 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: DougR
Date: 2007-11-21 15:02
Just a seasonal reminder to check & tighten all bell, barrel & body rings on wood instruments--as heating systems come online, indoor humidity plummets, wood shrinks, and any wood socket joint with a loose ring on it is liable to split if the ring doesn't fit nice & snug.
Lots of people on the 'board advocate humidifying first, then tightening if needed. I, however, having left my house keys in the front door lock one too many times, would prefer to control the things I can (getting the rings professionally tightened if they loosen up, check set-screws on adjustable rings like on my bass clarinet lower joint, etc.) rather than trust mere memory to keep case humidifiers replenished.
YMMV. The point is, check them rings!
cheers,
doug R
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Author: Don Berger
Date: 2007-11-21 16:39
Good advice, TKS , DougR. My 3 Rel. Hum. gages are showing about 40% RH, close to my chosen 35%! Already have one "loosening-up" bell ring, so am humidifying a few cls. Freezing weather predicted soon ! Don
Thanx, Mark, Don
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Author: sfalexi
Date: 2007-11-21 18:44
I check my barrel and tenon rings every 25,000 miles....
US Army Japan Band
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Author: C2thew
Date: 2007-11-21 21:20
Humistats rule! through one in my case, and my clarinet has definitely taken to the extra moisture
Our inventions are wont to be pretty toys, which distract our attention from serious things. they are but improved means to an unimproved end, an end which was already but too easy to arrive as railroads lead to Boston to New York
-Walden; Henry Thoreau
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Author: marcia
Date: 2007-11-21 21:40
Body rings...does that include nose rings?? Sorry couldn't resist. ![[grin]](http://test.woodwind.org/clarinet/BBoard/smileys/smilie5.gif)
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Author: sfalexi
Date: 2007-11-21 22:28
You can take a VERY thin piece of paper, take the ring off, and put a thin strip of that paper over the cutout where the ring attaches. Then replace the ring OVER the paper. The paper should make it a little dificult to slip the ring on. Press the ring on by turning the clarinet body and pressing the whole ring flat onto a very hard surface (desktop, scrap hard piece of wood, etc). Then take a razor and cut the excess sticking out from around the ring.
That I learned from another post. I did it to one of my clarinets and it worked fine for the years I had the clarinet.
Alexi
US Army Japan Band
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Author: clarnibass
Date: 2007-11-22 11:50
Morrigan
I had a ring that fell every winter. I fixed it using the suggestion from Gordon (who post on this forum) which is gluing it back with shellac. Worked great and several winters later it hasn't moved. This is in my opinion (which is based on actually trying both methods) a much better method than the one with the paper as filler.
You don't necessarily have to take it to a repairer... if you have the materials and skills to do it yourself! The materials are easy to get 
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Author: Chris P
Date: 2007-11-22 12:49
If you haven't got any shellac, degrease the recess where the ring fits on the socket and coat the recess with a thin and even layer of SUPERGLUE, then let it go off before putting the ring back on, making sure you put the rings back on THE RIGHT WAY UP! I've lost count of how many clarinets I've seen with the rings put back on upside down.
Former oboe finisher
Howarth of London
1998 - 2010
The opinions I express are my own.
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Author: DougR
Date: 2007-11-22 15:00
I could be wrong, but I think the whole point of bell and body rings in the first place is to CONTAIN the wood so it doesn't split under stress when the instrument is assembled. Obviously if the rings are loose around the tenon sockets, there's a gap between the wood and the ring. The wood being as thin as it is on tenon joints, it's possible merely assembling the instrument could split the wood in the tenon joint.
(this happened to me with my Selmer bass, which has a body ring on the lower joint that's tightened by a set-screw. I neglected to check the screw tightness as the season changed one time, and the wood shrank, resulting in a small split in the tenon wood when I put the horn together.)
You can get a loose ring to stay put by gluing, shellacking, whatever, but there can still be a gap. Admittedly we're talking about microns of a millimeter, but there still can be a gap. (I know this sounds a little, shall we say, obsessive. Welcome to my world.) And for ME, because of the unfortunate 'learning experience' with my bass, I prefer to let a repair person re-size loose rings (I think they have some kind of magic re-size-o-tron to do this) so that the rings fit without glue, paper bushings, or anything.
but again, as I said in the original post, YMMV!
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Author: Chris P
Date: 2007-11-22 15:30
Rings keep the sockets under pressure to prevent them splitting when the tenon (and tenon cork) exerts outward pressure within the socket, so any filler used between the ring and the socket that helps achieve equal pressure around the circumference of the socket will keep things nice and tight to prevent splitting.
And this can be added or removed as needed (say the joints get tight in the summer, the rings can be removed and then refitted without the shims or the underlying glue is cleaned off).
Resizing (by shrinking) the rings will only apply increasing pressure each time it's done, but it can only be relieved (when the joint begins to bind) by removing wood from the socket which will end up with thin ends to the sockets which isn't ideal as these can collapse inwards. Or removing wood from the tenon rings where possible, if there's a metal tenon cap then only so much can be turned down to prevent them becoming too thin and splitting when the wood expands. Or the socket ring can be expanded by being cut, filled and plated (and can only plated so many times before the rings lose definition and gain too much height).
I don't know if many repairers will carry collets to expand socket rings if they're too tight as they'll be expensive, they'll need several sizes and how often will they use them to make them worth their while?
Former oboe finisher
Howarth of London
1998 - 2010
The opinions I express are my own.
Post Edited (2007-11-23 00:45)
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Author: LesterV
Date: 2007-11-22 17:04
Last winter the ring on the joint end of my bell became very loose. I tightened it using plastic kitchen wrap by laying a square piece of the plastic wrap over the end of the bore before replacing the loose ring. Replacing the ring stretched the plastic forming a drumhead like membrane over the bore and leaving a layer of plastic between the ring and the wood. This membrane and all excess plastic wrap was trimmed off with a sharp blade. This seems to work well as the ring has been tight ever since.
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Author: DougR
Date: 2007-11-22 19:13
Chris--
thanks for your crucial 3rd and 4th paragraphs, which is stuff I didn't know. I've never had a problem with joints binding due to swelling wood and/or too-tight rings, so this is all news to me, and good to know.
doug
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Author: Chris P
Date: 2007-11-22 22:06
Ideally tenons should be a good, wobble-free fit in the sockets WITHOUT the cork gasket (which is there to make the joint airtight), but as wood is far from perfect in that it will be slightly oval in both tenon and socket, there has to be some degree of wobble in order for it not to bind, so a near perfect compromise has to be met.
Even so, in the near perfect compromising world, wooden tenons and sockets can be made to fit reasonably well, but once you introduce metal strengthening rings into the equation that suddenly prevents the socket from moving how it should do (though it will expand and contract inwards) while the tenon is free to expand and contract as it likes (provided it hasn't got a metal tenon cap). So an even less than perfect fit has to be achieved (but still within the boundaries of being 'good') to prevent the upper tenon ring binding in the top of the socket by only removing the wood where it is binding.
Yamaha recommend curing tight tenons and sockets by opening up the socket rather than taking down tenon rings. But measuring from top to bottom on a socket where the rings are fitted tight will show there's a constriction where the socket ring is, and widens out below this.
But if the socket is made with the sides perfectly parallel after the ring is fitted while the humidity is high, come a spell of dry weather the socket will be wider at the top when the wood shrinks. This can cause the joint to wobble. Likewise, taking down the end tenon ring to fit past the constriction in the socket and making the upper one a good fit will also make the joint wobble during a dry spell.
Sorry, my brain is beginning to hurt thinking about all of this so I'll stop here while I gather up my strength.
Former oboe finisher
Howarth of London
1998 - 2010
The opinions I express are my own.
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Author: samohan245
Date: 2007-11-23 00:36
yeah i already had had the middle ring come off!!!!
it was hot and then cold too fast!!!!
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Author: clarnibass
Date: 2007-11-23 03:39
"I don't know if many repairers will carry collets to expand socket rings if they're too tight as they'll be expensive, they'll need several sizes and how often will they use them to make them worth their while?"
Not only that, but even if I just received the ring shringing tool for free I think I probably wouldn't use it and prefer the method with shellac anyway.
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Author: William
Date: 2007-11-23 14:11
One other indication of loose rings is if you are experiancing a slight buzz or subtil "undertone" on certain notes that sounds like a reed or mouthpiece problem. Mine was a subtone on B5 that would not go away which, after weeks of agony, was found [by my wonderful repairperson, Mary J] to be casued by a loose ring. Rings don't neccessarily have to be falling off to cause problems or allow tendons to be damaged. The repair is easily done in any well equiped repair shoppe--or if none is conviently available, by inserting a thin slice of paper, electricians tape, etc under the ring to take up any slack. This "fix" is only temporary and should not be considered a permanent remedy--you eventually should take it to a good repair person for a professional tightening.
(FYI--loose screws or rods can also cause irratating subtones)
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Author: rtmyth
Date: 2007-11-23 18:59
My 5 Ridenours have never had a ring problem, I assume because of the resonite bodies. But, I never had loose rings develop on my wooden instruments either here in south central Texas.
richard smith
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