 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: banddad
Date: 2008-12-07 14:06
My daughter dropped and broke her plastic (I think) Vito clarinet in half at a school function. The crack goes all around the clarinet where it connects to the tenon, partially around the metal ring, then down and through a tone hole. Fearing reprisals, she attempted a repair herself. She globbed super glue in the crack and did manage to re-attach the end, but the repair is far from smooth. You can feel bumps in the female end where the tenon inserts. At this point, being a hardcore do it yourselfer, I am getting ready to dip the end of the clarinet into acetone to dissolve the super glue, and then attempt to re-attach it. Any reccommendations as to what type of glue or epoxy I can use?
I realize a real repair shop could fix this for me, but I really feel I can do it with the right advice.
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Author: tictactux ★2017
Date: 2008-12-07 14:18
If I were you I'd either buy a donor Vito off eBay and/or consider getting a replacement clarinet. A snapped center tenon is something that is likely to fail in the future again, and at some $10 for a donor clarinet...
OTOH, you haven't got a lot to lose, so I'd first check if the repair is structurally good and if all that's needed was some smoothing.
If it isn't, try to take it apart (I'd strip the keys and tried to hold it into boiling water before using acetone as the latter will likely attack the plastic.)
I'd then use medium slow setting 2 component epoxy (Araldite or the like).
Good luck!
--
Ben
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Author: Chris P
Date: 2008-12-07 14:18
Acetone will soften and dissolve the very plastic the clarinet is made from.
Your best bet is to turn up a new tenon from plastic (such as PVC or ABS) and turn a socket in the broken end for it to be glued into (with epoxy), clamped tight and left for 24-48 hours.
If that's not possible, try to source a replacement joint.
Former oboe finisher
Howarth of London
1998 - 2010
The opinions I express are my own.
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Author: clarnibass
Date: 2008-12-07 14:42
One repairer on this forum named Gordon NZ has a good method for gluing a broken clarinet with epoxy and stainless pins. I've also heard from at least a few American repairers that they have just glued a borken plastic clarinet, one used super glue, and one used a different glue (I forgot what it was) and said it essentially welds the break, so it actually more likely that if it breaks again it will be at another spot. I think they haven't tried it on all types of plastic clarinet (there are several different plastics) so gluing, dpending on the glue, might work better for some material and not others. The pins & epoxy method will probably work on all clarinets.
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Author: Ralph Katz
Date: 2008-12-07 14:56
Unless you are either a machinist or very handy, I would take it to a repair shop who has worked on problems like this. Someone that I know here in Michigan fixed a university's plastic contra-alto clarinet that had been dropped and split in two. They bored sockets in both parts, glued in a plug, bored it back out, and re-drilled the tone holes that intersected the plug. When completed, it looked and played like new. This was an expensive repair, but was 1/8 the cost of a new instrument.
A local repair shop may just have the part you need sitting around in their scrap box. Barring that, most instrument manufacturers sell replacement joints, and for a plastic instrument this will probably be less expensive than repairing the old part.
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Author: BobD
Date: 2008-12-07 23:15
This is not as easy repair as it might seem to be. Among the unexpected possibilities is getting it glued only to find that the bore is not straight. Based on my own personal experience the chances of you getting it "right" on a first attempt are slim. Epoxy is not necessarily the best "glue". Assuming the Vito is made of ABS (the usual suspect) some people recommend making a "paste" using ABS chips and either acetone or MEK. Yes, acetone dissolves ABS. My latest, so far successful , job ended up with using Cyanoacrylate....super glue. So far it's holding but I'm not supremely confident.
Bob Draznik
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Author: David Spiegelthal ★2017
Date: 2008-12-08 03:11
I fixed a broken tenon on a plastic bass clarinet just the way described above by clarnibass and ascribed to Gordon(NZ), using steel pins and the right type of epoxy. It wasn't an easy repair, and would be even harder to do right on a smaller soprano clarinet, but it can be done and it's permanent.
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