 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: abe2010
Date: 2013-03-20 10:49
So, I picked up an old evette&sheaffer master model clarinet on ebay. As I looked down the bore (especially of the upper joint) the surface texture looked somewhat rough, like there was some kind of grime all around. I decided that I was going to clean out whatever could be cleaned out before the oiling and see what happens. So I took my toothbrush, a bottle of pantene shampoo and a small bucket. I dabbed the toothbrush with shampoo and started brushing around in the bore furiously. After a minute or two I see a nice foamy brown lather oozing out. I guess there was some sort of dirt in there. After a thorough cleaning the appearance of the bore surface didn't seem much smoother. I then oiled it up several times over a week or two with sweet almond oil and looked down the bore once again - but the same rough texture appeared. I wondered just how rough it was so I inserted my pinky into one end and turned it around a few times to see what it felt like. It didn't fell rough at all, actually quite smooth. Well then I took a look again and what did I see? right where I had swiveled my finger around was shiny and smooth while the rest of the bore had the same rough appearance.
Makes me wonder - why does it appear rough yet feel smooth? Is rubbing it with my finger making it smooth? Should I try to "smoothen" out the rest of the bore by rubbing something through? What sort of medium should be used for this?
Any experience is appreciated.
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Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2013-03-20 12:39
Get a bottle brush -- the kind with stiff bristles sticking out of a twisted wire handle. It should fit the bore so that the bristles are just touching or slightly bent but not jammed. You'll probably need two brushes, one for the barrel, upper joint and the lower joint down to the low Eb key and the other for the remainder of the lower joint.
If the tip of the brush doesn't have a plastic cap, cover it with a small piece of duct tape or wrap a rubber band tight around it, and also wrap the twisted wire handle with a layer of duct tape.
Take some well-worn cotton -- for example, a worn-out sheet or pillow case -- and cut out a piece about 1' x 2'. Drape it over the tip of the brush and wrap it around the handle so that you're holding both the brush and the cloth. Experiment with the amount of cloth to get a tight but not jammed fit in the bore.
Buff the bore with a push-pull motion, 10-15 strokes until it's shiny. On the top joint, work down to the register vent and then up from the bottom to the register vent. As soon as the bore is shiny, STOP. Further buffing will pull lint off the cotton cloth and deposit it in the tone holes.
Take all the keys off and thoroughly clean the inside of the tone holes with a wet Q-Tip, preferably one with a wood shaft for better leverage. Swab out the bore with a silk swab and blow out any lint that's still there. Repeat this 2 or 3 times to get everything out before it dries and adheres to the wood.
I've made dramatic improvements to a grenadilla recorder and moderate improvements to a (spare) clarinet. Remember, though, that Benade's experiments showed that clarinet tone is affected by the texture of the bore surface. To paraphrase Duke Ellington, if the horn plays good, it IS good, regardless of how shiny the bore is, and you can mess it up by changing it to what you think it OUGHT to be.
Ken Shaw
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Author: rtmyth
Date: 2013-03-20 14:22
I have looked at wood bores with 3X magnification. Most were not as smooth as I thought they should be, particularly compared to the Ridenour hard rubber bores. My VSP Leblanc was actually somewhat rough but played ok.
richard smith
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Author: Bob Phillips
Date: 2013-03-20 15:25
I've been using the Doctor's GrenadOil for several years and am amazed at how smooth and shiny the bore appears. It is NOT as shiny and smooth as the bore of my Ridenour Lyrique, though.
The GrenadOil seems to shine up the bore better than anything I've ever used.
Bob Phillips
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Author: Alseg
Date: 2013-03-20 16:32
The sound that ultimately comes out of any given clarinet is not dependent on the open graininess of the bore surface at the time that the clarinet was selected. (Deterioration of a smooth into a rough bore through neglect or scraping is another thing, however).
Some good playing horns have more ridges internally than others, yet play well or better than slick ones.
As stated here previously, Moennig opined that he felt the more open grain ones played better overall.
Opperman concurred on this point.
...no matter: handsome is as handsome does.
That said, purveyors of clarinets, barrels, etc. burnish or polish as best they can, to satisfy consumer preferences.
Most of mine come out smooth, but someone once called me to task for a rougher barrel bore that I sent him....but stated that it played well, and refused a replacement.
Dont obsess over appearances of the bore surface, other than attention to real cracks or pits that effect tone hole sealing.
Former creator of CUSTOM CLARINET TUNING BARRELS by DR. ALLAN SEGAL
-Where the Sound Matters Most(tm)-
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Author: David Spiegelthal ★2017
Date: 2013-03-20 17:17
Remember that the essential acoustics of a clarinet are that of a standing-wave generator, rather than a continuous-flow device. In another words, the sound is mainly generated by an oscillating pressure wave within the bore which couples to the outside via the toneholes and to a slight extent the bell, and not by a steady one-directional flow of the air through the body of the instrument. What I'm trying to say is that surface roughness of the clarinet inner wall does increase friction of the air movement within, but it's not as big an influence as you might think because of the relatively low displacements and velocities of the air in its back-and-forth motion. Surface roughness probably adds a slight bit of damping to the oscillations, and that is not necessarily bad --- depending on the frequency and nature of the harmonics being generated, that friction can actually help in some instances.
Acoustics is hardly ever intuitive. It still baffles me after decades of study.
On an empirical note (pun accidental), I've played many "internally rough" clarinets that sounded great and a comparable number of "internally smooth" clarinets that sounded awful, so I'd agree with Dr. Segal that a smooth bore is provided more for marketing than acoustics.
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Author: abe2010
Date: 2013-03-20 19:32
Thank you all for informative replies. I'll probably try ken shaw's advice - pull through a cotton cloth a few times - and see if that makes a difference. Either way, afterwards it'll all go back together (because I took off all the keys to do the oiling and repading) and we'll see how it sounds.
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Author: moma4faith
Date: 2013-03-26 22:07
I had a private student bore oil his own instrument at home. He called me all in a dither because the inside was all "roughed up". He rushes over with the horn and his bag of cleaning tools. Turns out he had oiled it with a very fuzzy stick swab that deposited as much fuzz as oil inside the bore. A few run throughs with his swab and all was well. Poor guy was really upset at first, but we were able to chuckle about it after.
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