 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Clarineteer
Date: 2012-12-15 23:01
Can anyone please tell me the best way to tell if tone holes are undercut. Thanks very much.
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Author: kdk ★2017
Date: 2012-12-15 23:45
Look down the bore. If the inside of the tone hole looks larger in diameter than the outside, it has been undercut.
Karl
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Author: ruben
Date: 2012-12-16 15:24
Dear Clarinetteer,
I work with a clarinet maker -jl-clarinette- and when we study other instruments, we find it very difficult to figure out whether a hole is undercut or not and to what extent. Sometimes it is visible; sometimes not to the naked eye. If only there were some way to scan or x-ray the instrument. Who could do this for us and to whom could we addrees ourselves to? The other way is to saw the clarinet into little slices like a sausage! This has been done before, but it is like performing an autopsy; only to be carried out on a dead patient.
rubengreenbergparisfrance@gmail.com
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Author: Tony F
Date: 2012-12-16 15:42
I made an instrument for examining the underside of tone holes by grinding the lense of a small dental mirror so that it will fit into the bore. By looking down the holes you can clearly see the underside of the hole and if or not it is undercut. Perhaps a better way would be to use a cheap bore scope. I've seen them in electronic catalogs for very low prices.
Tony F.
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Author: ruben
Date: 2012-12-16 15:55
Thank you Tony! Sounds a great idea. What do you think of making a mould using wax, for example, and then pushing it through the hole into the bore then out the clarinet? It is important for us not just to know whether the hole is undercut, but also how. Would you know when instrument-makers began to undercut? It would seem to me that the practoce is fairly recent.
rubengreenbergparisfrance@gmail.com
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Author: Clarineteer
Date: 2012-12-16 17:05
The way that I determined that the tone holes were undercut was that I compared them to the tone holes on a 1950 pre R13 and the difference is very obvious.
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Author: Caroline Smale
Date: 2012-12-16 19:32
Undercutting of toneholes is a very long established procedure not just on clarinets but certainly oboes as well. Haven't seen enough wood flutes to tell but of course the blow hole of the flute is regularly undercut.
I have seen clarinets over 100 years old with undercutting.
Shining a bright light into the tonehole and viewing through a magnifying glass can help, I use an optivisor myself.
The larger toneholes are usually easy to see it's the smaller ones on the upper joint that are hardest.
If you want to make a mould you would have to push it into the tonehole from inside the bore and then back out into the bore again.
I like Tony's idea of a mirror - I have used small mirrors for many years to inspect the ports and venting on brass instruments but never considered making a really small one that would go down a tonehole.
edit - just re-read Tony's post and see he uses the mirror down the bore not down the tonehole.
Post Edited (2012-12-16 19:35)
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Author: Wes
Date: 2012-12-16 20:39
Reference was made to a cheap bore scope. Do you have any vendor for that? Thanks.
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Author: Tony F
Date: 2012-12-16 22:52
Go to EBay and search on "Borescope" and you'll find lots. Some are stand-alone units, some work through the USB port of your computer.
Tony F.
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Author: clarnibass
Date: 2012-12-17 04:44
>> I made an instrument for examining the underside of tone holes by grinding the lense of a small dental mirror so that it will fit into the bore. <<
Another way, even cheaper and simpler (unless you just happen to have one those mirrors) is to cut a small piece off a CD. It's not exactly like a mirror but it's pretty close. Better to use one with the silver colour back (some have a colour).
I've used this when a mirror with a handle wouldn't work for what I needed(going through a bass clarinet neck) and CDs aren't really useful for anything else
Post Edited (2012-12-17 04:45)
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