The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: C. Hogue
Date: 2001-03-20 15:37
Check out the pictures on this eBay listing:
http://cgi.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=1418121303
What is that metal thing sticking out of the top of the lower joint??? I've never seen anything like it.
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Author: Nate Zeien
Date: 2001-03-20 15:55
C. Hogue, also notice that the clarinet does not have a wooden tenon, with cork, as do most clarinets. This is merely a metal tenon. It goes farther up into the clarinet, so it has a hole drilled in it to accomodate the C/G hole in the clarinet. Quite interesting! -- Nate Zeien
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Author: Bill
Date: 2001-03-20 16:12
Are things reversed with the "interesting" section??
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Author: C. Hogue
Date: 2001-03-20 18:45
Nate -- Thanks for the explanation!
Now, what are the supposed advantages of engineering a clarinet to fit together with a metal tenon? -- C.
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Author: Anji
Date: 2001-03-20 19:31
Tenon caps act as a "torniquet" to keep the natural movement of the wood confined to a certain max diameter. I believe the joint can still contract.
I dunno what it does to resonance in the material but it should increase durability of the joint.
On the flip side, it will wear the opposing socket over time.
The folks who have actual repair history, like Dave Spiegelthal and John Butler can quote the pros and cons.
I had a Thibouville that had metal caps AND metal socket. When cold, the thing hardly held together, so even metal has some expansion character that is temperature dependent.
anji
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Author: C. Hogue
Date: 2001-03-20 21:26
Anji -- As Nate pointed out, this clarinet doesn't have a wooden tenon at all on the bottom of the upper joint. I understand about metal tenon caps and cups over wood. The horn in question uses a metal rod *instead* of a wooden tenon. Very curious! --C.
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Author: Bill
Date: 2001-03-20 21:40
Maybe it's a repair for a broken tenon, and the screw is/was used to make a tight fit.
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Author: Anji
Date: 2001-03-20 22:28
OH MY Gawd!
It really looks like an electrical conduit.
You don't suppose this thing had a night job?
Sorry about the presumption, I didn't look into the pix.
This looks like a hack repair.
I can't imagine the variance in bore from one section to the next.
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Author: jbutler
Date: 2001-03-20 22:45
What ever it is/was I would not even offer to guess without close inspection. However, I do not believe I will bid on the piece in order to examine it. I'll let it go at that.
Tenon caps are used to repair broken or split wood in tenons. The most common tenon repair is the LJ to bell tenon. The wood is thin and in older clarinets they tend to develop lateral cracks in them. Carefully machined they do not cause a problem and can alleviate some of the "wobble".
John
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Author: Jim
Date: 2001-03-21 04:18
Anji wrote;
"I had a Thibouville that had metal caps AND metal socket. When cold, the thing hardly held together, so even metal has some expansion character that is temperature dependent."
All materials will to some degree expand and contract with temperature changes (including metals.) Wood reacts both to temperature, and also to moisture changes, expanding (often called "swelling") as the moisture content increases, and contracting ("shrinking") as it decreases.
One would expect that parts made of the same metal would expand and contract at the same rate if at the same temperature, so perhaps Anji's experience had parts made of dissimilar metals.
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Author: Cass
Date: 2001-03-23 12:38
When I was talking with my teacher about replacing my old clarinet, she warned me about some things to beware of and got started telling funny stories about things she saw. She found a used clarinet for sale where someone replaced a broken tenon with threaded PVC plumbing pipe. You screw it together instead of using a cork. She said it had silicon caulk where the plastic of the clarinet and the PVC were joined and it looked terrible. She tried it out but the pads were so bad she couldn't tell how it would sound or if the tenon joint was air tight. But she said don't even bother to bring her one of those to look at. Uh, I don't think she has to worry about me bringing in one of those. ;-)
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