 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Tony F
Date: 2013-08-24 09:57
I've just come across a rather nice JTL clarinet at a garage sale. It's probably around the late 1800's with the wraparound register key. Wood looks OK, keywork is complete and the toneholes that I can see look good. I can't tell anything more about it at the moment, as it has been made into a table lamp and given a coat of rather nasty amber coloured varnish. The joints are stuck and may have been glued together, and the mouthpiece is missing. Fortunately no holes have been drilled in it. There is a fairly major restoration here. I'll post some pics when/if I've got it into presentable condition again. I paid $15 for it.
Tony F.
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Author: Chris P
Date: 2013-08-24 11:59
JTL did make some great instruments, so I hope this one turns out good for you.
Is the varnish flaking off easily or will it need some persuasion?
Former oboe finisher
Howarth of London
1998 - 2010
The opinions I express are my own.
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Author: Tony F
Date: 2013-08-24 13:29
The varnish is still softish, but very sticky. Nasty stuff, smells like hide glue. I've managed to get the keywork off intact but the joints are still stuck. There are dribbles of something in the bore around the joint lines, so they may have been glued, but I suspect it's varnish. It seems to respond well to a citrus-based solvent I use. Might take a while.
Tony F.
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Author: Lelia Loban ★2017
Date: 2013-08-24 14:18
Thank you for going to the trouble to try to rescue a clarinet that's been vandalized this way. I thought I'd be delighted when a new arts-and-crafts shop opened a block from my house several years ago, but delight turned to disgust when one of the first items the shop displayed in the front window was a clarinet made into a lamp. I didn't go marching around with a placard, but I did quietly but firmly boycott that place. Apparently that type of "art" didin't catch on with other people, either, because the shop didn't last long before it went out of business.
Lelia
http://www.scoreexchange.com/profiles/Lelia_Loban
To hear the audio, click on the "Scorch Plug-In" box above the score.
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Author: GeorgeL ★2017
Date: 2013-08-24 21:10
A clarinet can be utilized as a lamp with absolutely no damage being made to the clarinet. I have seen clarinet lamps (and clarinets used as decoration in Applebee restaurants) with the clarinet screwed to something; that is inferior design.
The base should be a box with a hole in its top for a length of threaded lamp rod. The lamp cord is threaded through the rod.
Place the rod in the hole, put a washer and nut on the end to keep it from pulling out of the hole, and put the clarinet on the rod, bell end against the top of the base.
Put a rubber stopper with a hole for the lamp rod in the top of the clarinet (with no mouthpiece).
Attach a lamp socket to the top of the lamp rod above the stopper, with the socket being tightened against the stopper to hold it in place. Attach the cord to the socket, put a shade on it, and it is complete. The top of the base and the rubber stopper are the only parts touching the clarinet.
I have had a $50 pawn shop metal clarinet (which would need a full repad job to have a chance of being playable) in such a lamp for 15 years. The top of the box is a 10" square piece of marble held by wooden sides. The clarinet has tarnished into a dark shade (and there is not a chance my wife would let it be anywhere in the house other than my desk), but it has not been harmed in the making or use of the lamp.
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