The Clarinet BBoard

Glue For Tenons and Pads

Author: abrogard  Date:   2012-07-07 01:57 I am looking for a glue to glue cork on my clarinet tenon and glue new pads on. Various threads here and there talk extensively about the subject but for me all their information is infuriatingly inexact. They speak of using 'contact cement' - but what is that exactly, today, with so many glues on the market, most of them, from superglue to epoxies, acting on contact? They mention brands I've never seen. They mention things relatively unobtainable in a country town - shellac sticks for instance - and which many other posters say are no longer good to use. So I wondered if anyone could recommend a modern freely available glue or range of glues and in particular give the active constituent or something that may enable one to find a glue of that type even if of not of that brand? Another good thing might be coming at it from the other end: describe the glues, the types of glues, that should be avoided and the reasons why. I imagine the epoxies would fall in that category because they stick so well and are so hard they'd be a major removal job - you might have to work so hard to get them off a tenon you'd damage the tenon with your removal tool. And getting them out of a pad cup... perhaps impossible. And some glues - I don't know which - are not suitable for plastic and even I have a couple of plastic clarinets, there's many around these days. A case in point may be the Selleys 'Shoe Glue' I have at home. Not easy to categorise it because they simply don't tell you what's in it. They just say it is suitable for bonding a whole range of things including cork. And they say it is not suitable for polypropylene or polyethylene, whatever they are. A small clue as to the 'class' of glues it belongs to is that it is cleanable before setting with mineral turpentine, it says, on the tube. It is what I use. Anyone care to help with this? regards, ab

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Re: Glue For Tenons and Pads

Author: clarnibass  Date:   2012-07-07 05:50 Contact cement is contact glue. That's the type of glue. It works by smearing a thin layer of the glue on both surfaces, waiting a bit (from 30 seconds to 10 minutes, depending on the glue, weather, etc.) and then putting the two surfaces together. It glues on contact... that's where the name comes from Super glue and epoxy are not contact glues because they don't work the same way at all. They don't glue on contact, but instead you put the glue between the parts and wait for it to dry (regardless of how fast or slow it is). With contact glue the wait is before the contact. Most hardware stores would have at least a few types of contact glues. For pads you can use any heat melting glue. Shellac is common and relatively comfortable to use. Hot melt glues can vary and I like some types better than others. I prefer the pellets sold by Music Medic and J.L. Smith. The pellets are comfortable to use (occasionally one more or less is too much or too little though). Other hot melt glue availalbe in similar size pellets is not the same so being a stick or pellets isn't very significant to what it actually is. If you have some hot glue available in a local hardware store you can try it and see if you like it. I've tried some types that I didn't like at all and same for shellac. I think Music Medic is probably the best place for small international orders. BTW 3/32" cork was mentioned for tenons. I've never found a tenon that needed such a thick cork. If thicker than 1/16" is required then I prefer to use a double layer of a more supportive material first followed by my preferred thickness for tenon corks which is 3/64".

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