 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Sang1Lee
Date: 2009-01-09 01:56
is there any way(s) to prevent the water gathering in the key holes?
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Author: kdk
Date: 2009-01-09 02:37
Don't play the instrument. :-)
Really, about all you can do is swab the instrument often, especially while it's still not completely warmed up or if you're playing in a chilly environment.
Karl
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Author: musicman83
Date: 2009-01-09 03:08
Water will move around oil. So if you use oil and a piece of wire to draw a line of oil around the tone holes the water will follow the oil instead of going in the tone holes.
See this webpage for details
http://www.woodwind.org/clarinet/Study/WaterInTheHoles.html
To remove water in addition to swabbing, remove the mouthpiece, lower joint and bell. Then cover the bottom part of the upper joint with your hand, blow air into the barrel, and press the keys. This will get the water that is stuck in the tone hole, the swab only gets whats in the bore of the instrument.
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Author: EEBaum
Date: 2009-01-09 05:00
Swab after you've been playing for 10 minutes or so. It won't seem like you need to swab yet, but in my experience that's by far the most effective time. My presumption is that that's when the biggest temperature change happens, and so that's when the most condensation gathers. Swab out then, and you've stopped the problem before it starts. Wait another 10-20 minutes, and you may get a key soggy enough that no amount of swabbing seems to fix it.
Swab early, and swab often. But between those, I get much more mileage out of swabbing early.
-Alex
www.mostlydifferent.com
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Author: Gordon (NZ)
Date: 2009-01-09 06:57
Make sure you have not got a heap of lint (from your swab) in the tone holes.
Try...
Either wipe a water repellant (eg Scotchguard... Vaseline would be a nuisance on the pads!) inside the tone holes
or
wipe a surfactant such as detergent inside the tone holes to make the moisture smear over the surface and not bead, hence not run out???
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Author: Nessie1
Date: 2009-01-09 07:54
Once you have got a "bubble" in a tone hole, a good trick I was taught is to put a folded cigarette paper under the key and then swab the instrument (or the affected joint). You can of course do this for several tone holes at once.
Vanessa.
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Author: Chris P
Date: 2009-01-09 09:24
Cigarette papers will only tend to blot the water from the surfaces (pads and the tonehole tops), but they won't actually wick the moisture from inside toneholes if there's no contact.
Your best bet is to blow the water out - close all the toneholes, block the middle tenon and blow down the bore while opening each pad in turn (you can do the same, but suck the water into the bore), then use the cigarette papers to dry the pads afterwards and dry the bore with a pullthrough, or annoy the players around you by blowing noisily into a tonehole from the top side to blow the water into the bore - aim for a nice 'pfffft' sound, though if it whistles, that's a cheeky bonus.
Former oboe finisher
Howarth of London
1998 - 2010
The opinions I express are my own.
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Author: Malcolm Martland
Date: 2009-01-09 10:21
Check out http://www.woodwind.org/clarinet/BBoard/read.html?f=1&i=279903&t=278230
Gordon (NZ) wrote:
«Instead of making the surface hydrophobic, so that the water beads on it and runs to unwanted places, clean teh surface well, and perhaps apply a surfactant, to make it hyudrophylic, so that the water spreads evenly all over the surface and does not "run" along the surface. »
Malcolm Martland Wrote
I had this problem with a recently overhauled clarinet - including oiling - it was OK before. I used the recorder players solution from Moeck - a few drops of Anticondens down the bore - the problem went away after several applications. Dupont's Dupanol acts in the same way. Somewhere is another thread was the following which I added to.
Check out:
http://www.woodwind.org/clarinet/BBoard/read.html?f=1&i=197484&t=197278
"There are prepared solutions available to help moisture clogging in the windway; Moeck makes Anticondens and Dupont makes Duponol. They can be a real help. While I refer to Duponol in the following, the use is the same for Anticondens. Duponol is a detergent solution that helps moisture in the windway to stream, rather than form beads. It works much like dishwasher detergent does, helping the water to form a sheet, rather than stay in drops."
It worked for me.
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Author: William
Date: 2009-01-09 14:07
Tone hole water is a major problem for oboes. To prevent this, the oboist in my woodwind trio (ob. cl. bsn) uses a wire put a thin line of WD-40 around the upper side of the most problematic holes to divert the moisture around them, preventing the dreaded "gurgle" effect.
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Author: Arnoldstang
Date: 2009-01-09 14:41
I would go with Alex on this subject. Swab before you have to. If there is water in a tone hole you have waited too long. At this point I would use cigarette paper and both blow and suck with the paper in the offending tone hole. Repeat with moving the paper to a dry spot.
Back to preventing it....I would be very observant during warmup. Play for only a minute and check the bore of the instrument to see if condensation is accumulating. Swab. Keep swabbing frequently during the warmup. Again , a visual check gives you an idea of how water is accumulating. If you just arbitrarily decide it's time to swab there might be no good reason. Use your eyes.
Freelance woodwind performer
Post Edited (2009-01-09 15:00)
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Author: Rusty
Date: 2009-01-09 19:47
Some observations:
The use of a surfactant to sheet the condensate over the inner surface seems contrary to the idea of having the water collect and run in a stream down the lower centre out of harms way.
While I`m sure the cigarette work on the pads is a good idea I think human nature is such that it becomes too much of a bind to fiddle with bits of paper when you are in a band or group.
I like the idea of an early swab. Never thought to do this before.
But all this leaves the question why pads should be so moisture affected over time. Tap washers are best kept wet. Surely manufacturers can come up with something better than current pad material.
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Author: Chris P
Date: 2009-01-09 20:14
Wet pads against a wooden tonehole bedplace is bad news for both the pad and bedplace. I know grenadilla is an incredibly dense wood compared to maple, but have you seen the damage done to bassoon toneholes when wet pads remain in contact with them? Nasty. This damage can eventually happen to grenadilla, though obviously over a much longer period of time.
Former oboe finisher
Howarth of London
1998 - 2010
The opinions I express are my own.
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Author: Avie
Date: 2009-01-09 20:40
I sometimes use the "pfffft" method and then dry the pads. The problem may suddenly disappear.
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Author: Chris P
Date: 2009-01-10 08:45
Easier said than done.
Former oboe finisher
Howarth of London
1998 - 2010
The opinions I express are my own.
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Author: Bob Phillips
Date: 2009-01-10 18:10
My experience tracks with EEBaum's advice: Preventative swabbing. Once a trickle forms into a tone hole, you've got a problem that will stay with you through that playing session.
Bob Phillips
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Author: mrn
Date: 2009-01-10 22:43
I actually prefer to use a dollar bill rather than cigarette paper to dry tone holes. They are very absorbant (mostly cotton), don't disintegrate, and are essentially free, since they don't lose their value--exchange rates notwithstanding. 
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Author: Gordon (NZ)
Date: 2009-01-11 00:39
Unfortunately our ones are made of plastic paper, and totally non-absorbent.
Nor do they have any other useful qualities... They are non-abrasive, and do not fold to a crease. Some day even US may consider an 'upgrade' to these. So get your submissions ready! :-)
They last much longer, and apparently are much more difficult to counterfeit.
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Author: Rusty
Date: 2009-01-11 01:15
I only have some loose change. Had a paper bill once, then world markets crashed.
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Author: Jkelly32562
Date: 2009-01-11 03:18
I had a teacher tell me to twist my barrel and that this affects how the water goes through the horn. I am not sure exactly how this works, but I no longer get water in my c#/g# tone hole.
Jonathan Kelly
jkelly32562@troy.edu
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Author: Claire Annette
Date: 2009-01-12 14:45
"I sometimes use the "pfffft" method and then dry the pads."
Fellow pffffter, here.
A now famous teacher who is my age taught me this when he and I were both in high school:
If you must lay your clarinet down in your lap, lay it with the offending water-gathering hole north.
In other words, my side keys are notorious for gathering water. My clarinet would be held in my lap with the sidekeys facing up and the fingered tone holes facing the conductor. That way, the condensation doesn't gather in the offending spot.
Still, the swabbing technique is the only thing that works 100 percent for me. In a concert, I swab between each piece.
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