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Re: Padding Woes

Author: clarnibass
Date: 2010-07-16 06:25

Good ideas so far.

>> The lower joint is OK but the upper has very poor vacuum. <<

Don't try vacuum only. Try blowing or better just squirt air into the joint while the other end and all tone holes are closed. Some clarinets will just not hold vacuum so good and OTOH some will hold it but not seal great. With squirting you have a lot more feel and control.

>> Testing with my feeler gauge all the pads seem tight and balanced all the way around but they are leaking. <<

What thickness is your feeler? The feeler has two purposes. One is simply to feel if the pad grabs it (for open ones make sure not to press too hard, I usually press less firmly than when playing). The other is to feel the difference in grab around the circumference of the pad. A very thin feeler especially helps with this. The thing is, because of the way pads close, depending on how much you press, the feel will change in the front and back of the pads. This difference is bigger the shorter the key cup arm is.

It seems that you actually found the leaks, with your soapy water and it seems that you have several of them. With the feeler, are you absolutely sure the drag is the same all around the pads? If it drags, with a very thin feeler (no more than 0.015mm thick), it only means your leaks are smaller than this.

Your leaks might be from the tiny grains/chips in the tone holes. Chris gave suggestions for this problem. More often the pads are just not sealing properly and you need to check extra sensitive with the feeler and sit the pads better by whatever method you use. Unlikely but still possible that some of the pads are porous, distorted, or got distorted from your installation (e.g. too much heat, especially if you touched them with a pad slick).

First thing I'd do is replace or reseat all those pads where you found leaks, then go from there if you still have problems. Even with a lot of experience you can still find some pads are difficult so just take more time and work on them.

>> I used pressed felt and wondering if I should have used woven <<

You shouldn't have a problem using pads with pressed felt unless you have problematic tone holes. The specific pads and felt used in pads is more relevant than the type really e.g. the firmness can vary between different model pads the the same type of felt.

>> or can I expect the ones I used to settle in better with time? <<

You can't really do this. You might notice a small improvement for a little while, but actually if you play the pads to "level" then after sometime when they get harder they will become more difficult to seal because of this unlevelness and will need to be replaced much sooner. It really has to the best imediately after you install them.

>> I pressed them into the holes with moderate finger pressure to get a slight impression but it's obviously not enough. <<

Preferably should do this only after a pad is already installed to seal the best possible. Don't do this to help it seal to cover for inaccuracy in installation.

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Padding Woes new

stebinus2

2010-07-15 17:23