Author: NBeaty
Date: 2010-12-13 20:10
The hairdryer scares me a lot, as I stated before. A candle or blow torch seems pretty dangerous too. We're not talking about heating up a key to bend or for a pad to come free.
Stick with a lighter on a relatively low flame (if it's adjustable). Just hold the mouthpiece up and wave the flame across the dent a few times. It scares me to hear things like "let it heat up", implying that you set the flame on it and wait...bad idea. It takes a very small amount of time and not a lot of heat for this fix to happen. As a general rule, don't spend more than a second at a time with the flame on\near the mouthpiece. A second is a long time in this context. And of course, start off with less time and slowly increase until the dent comes out.
This reminds me of a story I once heard (or prank, more accurately). Clarinetist #1 explains to #2 that the problem with modern mouthpiece is that the rubber isn't cured for long enough and that the solution is to place it in the oven on 250 degrees for 10 minutes. After this process, the mouthpiece would then be cured and vibrate just like an old chedeville. Of course, the thing melts...
Don't let common sense escape your thought process.
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The Clarinet BBoard
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