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cleaning old hard rubber

Author: john connor
Date: 2010-03-07 20:03

Can anyone help me with this? I have an old (circa 1935) 1010 in hard rubber, which I love the sound of. It's not very different to the pre-war wood 1010 I have (it is different, but that's all, not better or worse...). I actually bought 2 at the same time, very cheap off ebay. From serial numbers they both dated from around the same time, but one was very badly degraded, in that the hard rubber seemed to have become unstable. It was very soft (easily rubbed off, easily scratched, and a little irritating to to the skin to handle). The other is also soft and a bit unstable, but not as bad. This one I play. I'd like to clean it up though. Any ideas how I could do this without further degrading the surface? I'm not worried about the green/brown colour, just the muck that needs rubbing out of the tone holes etc. It's like a deposit, and looks like it would need a solvent, or at least washing up liquid - but would these further de-stabilise the rubber/sulphur mix? Interestingly, the bores are smooth and shiny and like new - not suffering from this problem. Anyone have expertise in this? Thanks so much.

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Re: cleaning old hard rubber

Author: tictactux ★2017
Date: 2010-03-07 20:17

Cautious with solvents...last time I rubbed muck out of an old, old hard rubber instrument's tone hole, half the hole came along. :-(
Since then, I'm avoiding old HR instruments.

--
Ben

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Re: cleaning old hard rubber

Author: Gordon (NZ)
Date: 2010-03-08 11:19

These may be of interest:

http://test.woodwind.org/clarinet/BBoard/read.html?f=1&i=244876&t=244876

http://www.pensburymanor.com/Pensbury_Garage.html

At least one technician claims he has a rather elaborate way of using this product with no chance of any toxic effects (if there be any at all).

I was not sufficiently convinced to use the material.

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Re: cleaning old hard rubber

Author: RoBass
Date: 2010-03-08 15:03

Be aware! If you use any detergent or solvent, the rest of the rubber could weak and come distorted. I weaked a hard rubber clarinet in aqua dest only, but it came swollen allover. Hard rubber is a very mimosic material ;-)

Please take a look to pipe or fountain pen restorers! They use some special polish liquids including varnish and other "secret ingredients".
This will work well on rubber clarinets too.

kindly
Roman

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Re: cleaning old hard rubber

Author: john connor
Date: 2010-03-09 18:47

Thanks for all the words of caution and suggestions, guys. Maybe I'll just leave it alone. It plays fine, just looks dirty...

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Re: cleaning old hard rubber

Author: RoBass
Date: 2010-03-11 06:28

For rubber products some glycerine gels and silicone oils could be used als sealing and refresher. But all of this is only cosmetic. Rubber degrades slightly, and then sweats out sulfur until it cracks totally and irrevesible ;-/
Therefore I assume, we won't find any ebonite clatinets in the next millenium - but wooden ;-)

kindly
Roman

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