 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: LaurieBell
Date: 2014-10-31 17:19
I’d like to share an experience I had using an out-of-town instrument repair professional. My purpose isn’t to rag on this individual, so I won’t mention his name, but to share the experience so that others may avoid the pitfalls. I’ll give the moral of the story first, in case you don’t want to read the long post.
MORAL – Don’t use an out-of-town repair service, because you may wind up paying twice for repairs.
BACK STORY - I have a Buffet clarinet I purchased in 1973 and played on for nine years while in military bands. I hadn’t played on it since 1982, so when I picked it up again last year and decided to continue playing I started looking for a repair shop to do a complete overhaul.
I’m very sentimental about this instrument and wanted a top-notch job done, so I didn’t consider the local shop that repairs tons of instruments for schools each year. Instead I searched the internet and found a highly recommended repair technician in another state.
THE OVERHAULS - After talking to the out-of-state technician, I felt almost confident he’d do a great job, but just to be sure I sent him my husband’s clarinet first (a LeBlanc that he no longer uses.)
The technician recommended cork pads on the upper joint, synthetic pads on the lower joint, pad beveling, and some tone-hole resurfacing. When I received the LeBlanc back I was very pleased so I shipped my Buffet.
THE PROBLEM - I had the same up-graded overhaul on my Buffet, plus key polishing and a new hinge rod, for a total cost of $536. Initially I was very pleased with the Buffet, but after a month I noticed a problem with some notes stopping up after playing between 30-45 minutes. Since the clarinet repair had a year warranty, I shipped it back. The repair guy couldn’t find a problem other than a pad that seemed to shift a little on the upper joint, which he changed.
When I got the clarinet back I immediate noticed a problem with a pad on the lower joint taking too long to close. After talking with the repair guy I decided to play on it a while to see if it self-adjusted. We both agreed that if it didn’t, it might be best to have someone locally take a look at it.
The pad mentioned did seem to finally close OK, but the problem of the notes stopping up continued so I took my clarinet to the local shop. The local technician said the synthetic pads that were used are known to be sticky and she thought that once the clarinet had some moisture in it the pads might be swelling or sticking a bit. She recommended I try swabbing the instrument every 10 minutes and if that didn’t work, changing the pads back to the traditional skin-faced pads. I decided that I wouldn’t be able to get through a performance stopping to swab every 10 minutes nor would I feel confident that the clarinet wouldn’t stop up, so I asked her to replace all the pads in the lower joint. She did so and the problem immediately went away.
PITFALL - I emailed the out-of-town repair person with the status and asked for a refund of $140.46, the cost of the local repair plus the shipping cost for the second time I had shipped him my clarinet. He said he couldn’t pay for someone else's work - especially work that he wouldn't have done himself - and that he was sorry but he had done everything in his power to get my clarinet 100%.
I wrote back one more time saying how disappointed I was, and that I felt he didn’t honor the warranty, and since he was incapable of finding or fixing the problem, he should have paid the cost for me to get the clarinet fixed. I also said that since I had previously posted positive reviews on several online forums, I felt obligated to share my unfortunate experience, especially if it would help someone else avoid the pitfalls I encountered.
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2014-10-31 17:55
Interesting that you live in Atlanata. I could not for the life of me find a really reliable repair person in the entire Atlanta metropolitan area. I think the moral or the story is more that one cannot expect to find a reliable person in every major city or merely through the internet.
Even with strong recommendations from reliable peers, I still "send up a test balloon" by talking with the tech about key areas (for me) and how he/she addresses them. Then I also (not as a requirement but as a preference) ask about the flexibility of the tech to do work as requested (certain pads, certain teflon fittings etc) even if it's not what they normally do. Finally, if I still am a bit on the fence with a certain tech, I'll have them do some small (but significant to my criteria) repair and wait for the results of that.
I can honestly say there are only a handful of people today that I'd trust with my personal horns. Too many shops do, as you say, mostly student or school horns where volume (numbers of instruments turned over) and profit are the highest and don't even want to bother with detailed work. It's just the way it is today.
..................Paul Aviles
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Author: pewd
Date: 2014-10-31 20:26
That is why I do most of my own repairs, whenever possible.
I've had lots of issues with most of the local repair shops - going for speed and volume, and not quality.
- Paul Dods
Dallas, Texas
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Author: kdk
Date: 2014-10-31 20:41
I guess we're lucky in the Philadelphia area to have had, at least for the last several decades, excellent repair people from Hans Moennig himself down to a handful of expert craftsmen today. So I'm used to never having to send my instruments anywhere to get excellent work.
There are more problems than you've run into with shipping work away to a shop and technician you don't know. One is that damage can happen to the clarinet in transit. I once - and only once (the reason is a long, separate story) - sent a clarinet from Philadelphia to Morrie Backun in British Columbia. By the time it reached him there was a crack in the instrument that I know hadn't been there when I sent it. It was a relatively new "rosewood" instrument and I suppose the temperature and humidity changes on the way caused the wood to swell and contract too much. Morrie did an excellent job on the clarinet, and when I got the instrument back from him it played superbly, but he had to do work to repair the crack that (probably) wouldn't have been needed had I had it worked on locally.
Another problem is that there is much in an "overhaul" involving adjustments that are quite personal to the player. If I'm sitting in the shop with the repairman, he can ask me what I want. He may recommend something else, and then I make the choice.
I have to ask, though, specific to your post, what you mean exactly by "notes stopping up." Were the tone holes filling with water? Were the pads sticking to their seats when you tried to open them? Were ranges of notes getting stuffy and unresponsive?
Karl
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Author: fskelley
Date: 2014-10-31 20:43
I think if you start with a miserable clarinet (pads missing or falling out, rotted etc / corks no good / keys misaligned) that is worth restoring, almost any repair tech/shop will get it in at least OK playing condition. Even that's not 100%, but it's pretty safe. Whether you get good value for what you pay is another issue.
But- if you start with a clarinet in moderate to great condition and expect a repair tech/shop to make it better, that's a much tougher prospect. And part of it is that even among the really good repair folks there is a lot of disagreement about the best choices- ditto the good players- so you can have a poor outcome just because tech/shop and player aren't on the same page.
On another thread I had a whole brouhaha over whether clarinet joints should seal Coke bottle tight. Some think that's the only way that will play correctly, and others I respect greatly (I'm including private emails here) believe it doesn't matter at all (if it plays right). Personally I don't know for sure just yet, ask me again in a year or 2. There are many other issues we disagree on, where there's really no right or wrong. So when a horn works for you, you'd better not let it go. And ditto when a tech/shop works for you.
Stan in Orlando
EWI 4000S with modifications
Post Edited (2014-10-31 20:52)
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Author: Chris P
Date: 2014-10-31 21:01
The problem here is you took your clarinet to someone else, thereby invalidating the warranty the original repairer gave you. Chances are he'd have changed the pads to whatever type you wanted if you asked him to under his warranty. I make it clear that my warranty on my work is invalidated if someone else does any work within the warranty period and I have to put that right.
A while back I had a call from a customer about a clarinet which I had completely overhauled and he had a leak on the side Bb pad. Now I made sure the top joint was completely airtight before I returned it to him, but in the week that followed he had 'levelled' the side Bb pad as it wasn't sitting level in the pad cup like the others were (but it was seating perfectly onto its tonehole which is the main thing). The pad cup wasn't parallel with the tonehole and was never ever likely to be (short of remaking the key), so the pad was never going to be straight in it anyway. But that's only a cosmetic problem due to the way the key was made and the side Bb pad cup is near impossible to align due to how it's soldered onto the side Bb key. I replaced the pad but didn't charge him for that even though I really should have done.
Former oboe finisher
Howarth of London
1998 - 2010
The opinions I express are my own.
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Author: LaurieBell
Date: 2014-10-31 21:46
In response to Karl, who asked, "what you mean exactly by "notes stopping up."
What I meant is that the specific note would not speak at all. The sound didn't come out until I waited several seconds, and then it would sound. This only happened after the instrument had warmed up for 30-40 minutes, so the second repair shop's evaluation that moisture might be the root cause seemed to make sense to me. At any case, the problem felt "environmental." For more info see my post, "Clarinet Stops up after 30 minutes."
==
In response to Chris who wrote, "The problem here is you took your clarinet to someone else, thereby invalidating the warranty the original repairer gave you. Chances are he'd have changed the pads to whatever type you wanted if you asked him to under his warranty."
I don't agree Chris. The original repairer said he would not have changed the pads, and in fact he insisted the problem wasn't the pads, so had I asked him to change the pads, chances are he would have asked me to pay extra to do that.
The repairer also stated that he had done his best to make my clarinet 100%, but in fact, he failed to make it 100%. My clarinet played so unreliably that I was considering purchasing a new instrument.
So here are a few ethical questions:
1. How many times should a customer have to send the instrument back for repairs when the repairer couldn't find the problem in the first place?
2. How long should a customer expect to be without the instrument while the repairer tries this and that?
3. When repairs are under warranty, should the customer be obligated to pay for shipping and insurance? It cost me $50, although the repairer said he could have gotten me a deal, but I would have still had to pay something each time I sent it back to him.
To me a warranty implies that the customer should not have to pay anything towards the repair of the instrument for that period, AND the person giving the warrant is obligated to repair the instrument -- not just say they gave it their best effort.
==
Thank you for all of your responses. I was not aware that there is a shortage of good repairers and that many instrumentalists have to work together with their repairers in person to pin point problems.
Knowing what I do now though, I will certainly use my local repair shop -- the one that has repaired tons of band instruments. I was impressed with the repairer I worked with. She seemed to listen to my problem, she offered some ideas, and most of all she fixed my problem quickly and at a reasonable price.
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Author: kdk
Date: 2014-10-31 22:23
LaurieBell wrote:
> In response to Karl, who asked, "what you mean exactly by
> "notes stopping up."
>
> What I meant is that the specific note would not speak at all.
> The sound didn't come out until I waited several seconds, and
> then it would sound. This only happened after the instrument
> had warmed up for 30-40 minutes, so the second repair shop's
> evaluation that moisture might be the root cause seemed to make
> sense to me. At any case, the problem felt "environmental." For
> more info see my post, "Clarinet Stops up after 30 minutes."
> ==
I hadn't connected this post with the other one. I have to admit I'm surprised replacing those pads actually solved the problem. But it's hard to argue with success.
It isn't true, of course, that all the repair people in the local high-volume student-rental-oriented shops are incompetent, and you may well have found one of the good ones. They do tend to confine themselves on the student work they do to the minimum needed to make an instrument play for an inexperienced student who is mostly playing relatively undemanding music. But that doesn't mean they don't know how to do more or diagnose more precisely if they.re willing to sit down with you and take the time. Two of the most competent repairers I knew as a school music teacher for 30 years - one a string person and the other a woodwind specialist who when he needed to could do brass work competently as well - both worked in the shop of the local rental store that serviced our district. As you tried to do with your remote repair connection, it's usually a good idea to test any repair person with one or two pieces of work that aren't critical to find out what their level of expertise is.
Karl
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2014-10-31 23:44
I don't believe in (or care to believe in) repair 'warranty.' If the repair is substandard, the best you can do is write it off as a loss. In a case like that it is clear the repair technician you saw was indeed incompetent.
As far as time the horn is away, a competent (and busy) repair person will set a date at some point in the future for you to send in your horn when she/he will be able to get right on it. This way the actual turn around time is only a few days (this is done for professionals that cannot be without their "number one" for very long).
And I do not wish to say all who make their living on 'mass repair' are incapable or unwilling to do superior work. One such exception is Miles Davis (not THAT Miles Davis) of Miles Ahead Music in Louisville Kentucky, an amazingly talented woodwind repair person. In his case he has various levels of re-pad and overhaul prices depending on the level of horn involved and the level of care requested. The bottom line is that you need someone who is inquisitive and willing to 'work with you' on special requests.
Now there are exceptions to that as well. Both Bill Brannen and Peter Spriggs have a specific way they prefer to set up a horn and both do amazing things ...... you just have to like how they do it (and in Brannen's case he only works on Buffets now).
I found the Rosewood instrument story interesting. I think in that case, the wood was predisposed (had some existing weakness in the spot where the crack developed) to crack (Rosewood expands and contracts more than African blackwood to begin with) at some point anyway, though that doesn't make what happened any easier to live through I know.
................Paul Aviles
Post Edited (2014-10-31 23:49)
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Author: clarnibass
Date: 2014-11-01 17:08
>> I don't believe in (or care to believe in) repair 'warranty.' If the repair is substandard, the best you can do is write it off as a loss. <<
A warranty is not for when a repair is substandard. No person is 100% perfect all the time and there are things, especially dealing with some (natural) materials that are not 100% possible to control.
Just some examples... glue started deteriorating with no visual sign so a cork falls off, one pad happens to have a fragile skin and it tears (possible even from the best and most consistent pad makers), etc. There are also "issues" that are just preferance, like ring key heights. Someone might decide they want a different height after a while, I certainly wouldn't charge extra for that.
I agree that there isn't necessarily a correlation between working on many school instruments and how good someone is with pro models and players. It can absolutely happen that a school uses the same best repairer in the area. Some people might think that someone who is a specialist and very good might not have time for many school/student instruments. That is definitely a wrong assumption in some cases.
>> So here are a few ethical questions: <<
Practical more than ethical.
>> How many times should a customer have to send the instrument back for repairs when the repairer couldn't find the problem in the first place? <<
They don't "have to" send it at all. If the repairer can't fix a problem, you can decide how you want to deal with it, but consider the type of person you are dealing with. If it's someone who doesn't respond in a way you think is acceptable, you can choose how much you want to "fight" it. Best to choose your battles.......
>> How long should a customer expect to be without the instrument while the repairer tries this and that? <<
There is no standard. It could be a minute, it could be days and it could be... who knows. You can decide how long you consider is acceptable and when it's not, choose how you want to deal with it.
>> When repairs are under warranty, should the customer be obligated to pay for shipping and insurance? <<
When the repairer is a short (or not so short) drive away, should they return gas and car wear cost for a warranty repair? How about the customer's extra time?
By the way it's possible that it's not the new pads themsevles that solved the problem, but some other problem related to that (like a key binding) that was fixed during this repair. It's not really possible to know.
If I was you I would probably be glad I found a good repairer and just forget the bad experience. Remrember that the second repairer didn't actually find the problem... did they? It sounds like their $100+ lower joint pad replacement was a gamble that happened to solve the problem.
Post Edited (2014-11-02 09:15)
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Author: Mark Charette
Date: 2014-11-01 17:18
clarnibass wrote:
> Best to choose your bottles.......
I tend to choose Ardbeg Uigeadail for the really hard problems, Scapa for the simpler ones. :-)
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Author: BobD
Date: 2014-11-01 21:30
IMO: Well, the guy did the first horn to your satisfaction, so he is competent, I guess. Sending a treasured horn by mail....UPS, USPS, FED Ex etc etc always carrys risk so I think you should have used a local guy in the first place so that you could have had the problem corrected locally. Asking the original repairer to pay for a local repair is not a legitimate request. We all have opinions.
Bob Draznik
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2014-11-02 00:43
I look to consistency as a criteria. Getting it right once out two tries is a bad ratio any way you look at it. Either he is inconsistent or assigns horns to different techs in the shop (one is good, the other is bad). Either way, I'd never send a horn there.
.............Paul Aviles
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Author: clarnibass
Date: 2014-11-02 09:09
>> Getting it right once out two tries is a bad ratio any way you look at it. <<
Are you actually considering this to be a meaningful statistic in this case? Or a statistic at all really...? It's not. They may have had a hundred excellent repairs just before... or a hundred terrible ones, who knows. This is from a person who posted their bad experience and they happened to also have one good experience before that.
If even just one story like this makes you not want to use this or any other repairer that is fine. No problem. This is completely different than claiming anything general statistically.
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