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Re: Mouthpiece Cushion

Author: kdk ★2017
Date: 2010-08-23 17:40

I've found plastic (electrical) tape good enough at protecting the beak from teeth marks while I'm trying mouthpieces "on approval," which is what the OP asked about - or, rather, he asked about removing the commercial patches from mouthpieces after he'd finished testing them. His question didn't seem to be about patches players might use for the long haul of playing on an everyday mouthpiece.

These are two different uses for patches. As I've said, tape is fine for testing a mouthpiece and comes off easily. Over the longer term for me, although I play double lip most of the time, I like the softness of a patch, and the tape isn't soft or giving enough for my comfort. Not to mention that the adhesive is more prone in my experience to bleed out around the edges and get gummy once it's exposed. So for regular use, I prefer the Runyon black patches. They're actually thicker than I really like, but they're softer than the thinner ones on the market that (at least the ones I've tried) are made of a harder plastic material.

My overall preference is for the old-style rubber work gloves (the ones that were red inside and black outside) that many of us used to cut up for patches 40 years ago. They had the softness of rubber without the thickness. Alas, except for a small swatch of the stuff I've kept as a souvenir from the last gloves I bought (and used up), I haven't seen that kind of rubber in a glove or any other kind of sheet for a very long time. [frown]