 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: BGBG
Date: 2015-06-20 05:11
Have had new clarinet about a year. Never oiled bore. Took silk swab. Poured some Sweet Almond Oil in hand, maybe about a Tablespoon estimated, pulled swab through hand until oil mostly gone to distribute it.
Then pulled swab through assembled clarinet 4-5 times bell end to mouthpiece. Only played about half hour per day. Read that 4 times a year should be sufficient. Does this sound like correct procedure? It is Buffet E11.
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Author: knotty
Date: 2015-06-20 05:28
I use a .44 caliber gunbore swab. Seems I've heard once a year is plenty.
~ Musical Progress: None ~
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Author: BGBG
Date: 2015-06-20 07:21
It didnt look oily when I looked inside after I oiled it and I figured it was about time I did it.. Probably will do it once or twice a year. I read a post where someone puts a drop in the bell and sees if it is absorbed within 24 hours and if so then oils bore. Maybe depend on use and where you live.
Post Edited (2015-06-20 07:23)
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Author: JHowell
Date: 2015-06-20 07:33
Or you could oil it never, like I've been doing for 30 years. Just sayin'.
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Author: Steven Ocone
Date: 2015-06-20 16:48
There is not much agreement on oiling. I usually reserve oiling for older clarinets. The need can vary between climates and players. Adding some once a year should be sufficient. I don't always try to "saturate" the wood.
Steve Ocone
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2015-06-20 17:23
Those who don't experience cracking on non-oiled clarinets are lucky - mazel tov. If the wood is not allowed to soak up oil, it will soak up water. The wood WILL expand and contract with the presence and then lack of presence of water. If you allow the oil to sit in there, there will be less stress on the system. It only makes sense.
Now I am very happy to present my story of personal ignorance.
I have been using a product known as Orange Oil for the past few years, but have not always been happy with the look of the wood after application. Finally I had a chat with Dr. Omar Henderson of "The Doctor's Products" and he stated that he'd never heard of anyone using Orange Oil. A search on the web got me some descriptions of this product being used for "the conditioning of antiques."
Per Dr. Henderson's instructions I stripped the clarinet, and cleaned it with Murphy's oil soap to prepare it for the application of the "Bore Doctor." Low in behold, the instrument looked even MORE like it did after Orange Oil treatments (bare, lighter colored wood). So I think that rather than oiling, I had been slowly cleaning the wood the last few years.
My treatment with the "Bore Doctor" seems to be bringing the richness of the "look" back to the wood (though I will need more time to see how things go).
I have just noticed some hairline cracks above the two top sidekey tone holes (hoping that they will NOT proceed into the tone holes). I think I may have been just a little late getting at some decent bore oil.
On one further note, enclosed in my order of "Bore Doctor" was an announcement of a new product called "Gren-ade" apparently made of actual oil from grenadilla wood. Not much more information is available on this product. I wonder if Dr. Henderson would be able to provide a small review for us.
..................Paul Aviles
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Author: knotty
Date: 2015-06-20 19:06
Paul: "My treatment with the "Bore Doctor" seems to be bringing the richness of the "look" back to the wood"
I have lots of old woodies, guess back to the 60's and slowly restoring them. I got a bottle of Bore Doctor recently and applied it to the bore and external. It brought out a beautiful richness of wood. Tried a few other things like lemon oil and it did nothing to enhance the wood look.
~ Musical Progress: None ~
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Author: kdk ★2017
Date: 2015-06-20 19:21
Paul Aviles wrote:
> Those who don't experience cracking on non-oiled clarinets are
> lucky - mazel tov. If the wood is not allowed to soak up oil,
> it will soak up water. The wood WILL expand and contract with
> the presence and then lack of presence of water. If you allow
> the oil to sit in there, there will be less stress on the
> system. It only makes sense.
>
Two observations:
(1) I think you've turned the matter of luck around. The players who experience cracked instruments (whether clarinetists, oboists or others - even string players) are the ones who may have been unlucky in the wood that was used to build their instruments. This is a discussion that goes 'round and 'round with no resolution ever really achieved. I'm going to assume that at least some clarinets and oboes that crack *had been* oiled by their owners. Also, the wood billets are oil-treated during the manufacturing process, so new instruments - say within the first year - should never crack, if oil is an effective preventative.
(2) Grenadilla is a very dense wood. I've read nothing based on research that convinces me that it absorbs much of anything during playing.
(3) That allowing "oil to sit in there" will reduce stress on the system seems a little non-sequitur. It seems more likely that allowing the wood to dry too much may cause stresses that keeping it hydrated might avoid (much as so many here keep reeds hydrated).
I don't really want to try to convince anyone to oil or not to oil his clarinet. Having had only one instrument of several of my own (a brand new Rosewood one) crack in the past 40 years, I should probably take my "luck" and buy lottery tickets. But there may be other benefits, perhaps acoustic, to keeping the bore surface well polished with occasional oil applications.
Karl
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Author: BartHx
Date: 2015-06-20 23:33
I have a pre-WWII Kolert that was purchased new by a family friend. He eventually sold it my older brother who handed it down to me when our grandparents got him a Centered Tone. Until the last ten years or so, it was periodically oiled with olive oil. Since neither of us was in a position to afford a second clarinet, we both used it for everything in high school. I also used it for everything in college. It is still in excellent condition. I have no idea whether its present condition is due to the olive oil or to the beautiful, dense, fine grain wood from which it is made.
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2015-06-21 06:40
And I don't understand a situation where oil gets soaked up into the wood and water would not. That would not make sense. It's certainly not what I have observed.
How would you explain the joints getting harder to pull apart after playing? What would cause the wood to expand if it were not for the presence of water in the cells of the wood?
................Paul Aviles
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Author: Wes
Date: 2015-06-21 07:23
For the last two Buffet clarinets I've bought, the company recommended that they not be oiled in the bore. However, for older clarinets I work on, I usually give them a light coating of almond oil. No cracks yet. Blowing warm wet air into a cold clarinet bore is to be avoided.
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Author: JHowell
Date: 2015-06-21 07:39
I got my first Buffet R-13 when I was a junior in high school, and was extremely proud of it. I carried it to school under my coat so that it wouldn't get cold, and when I visited a college and the dorm room was freezing I slept with it. I lived in fear that it would crack, and I oiled it religiously, putting little bits of paper under the pads so they wouldn't get oiled and sticky. I read somewhere that Hans Moennig said that oiling deadened the sound of the instrument, and thought to myself, "Well, Hans Moennig is in the business of fixing instruments, he doesn't care if my clarinet cracks!" I kept on oiling.
It cracked.
My teacher in college shared the opinion that oiling the bore did nothing but deaden the sound of the instrument. So, my first new instrument in college, I continued to be careful about temperature, but didn't oil, somewhat nervously.
It did not crack. Even when I moved to New Mexico. Sold it after 8 or 9 years, still not cracked. Since then, I've had quite a few instruments, none of them oiled. Some have cracked, some have not. A crack isn't the end of the world; you have it pinned, you play the danged thing. I can't prove that oiling deadens the sound of an instrument; since every billet and every clarinet is different there is no way to establish a control for such an experiment, and what constitutes "deadening of the sound" is hopelessly subjective. But by the same token, nobody can prove that oiling prevents cracks. It seems worth noting that when you buy a Buffet clarinet, there is nothing about oiling it in the accompanying literature, which seems odd -- if oiling really prevented cracking then Buffet ought to include a bottle of bore oil and instructions for its use. And then refuse warranty on any cracked instrument that seems insufficiently oiled.
For the record, I don't care if you oil your clarinet; I don't care how YOUR clarinet sounds and I won't be buying it used, so if it makes you feel like you're preventing a crack, go ahead. But I feel obliged to offer a counterpoint to the posters who reply to every topic with "oil the bore!" Of the four clarinetists in my orchestra, with well over 100 years collective professional experience, none of us owns a bottle of bore oil.
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Author: kdk ★2017
Date: 2015-06-21 19:48
David, I am about half-way through the article you linked, and first off, I want to thank you for the citation.
But...
Silversorcerer wrote:
>
> My question would be have you actually searched for something
> to read that might settle the question?
Well, yes, but unsuccessfully with the resources I have at hand, and not o recently, as this topic has been around the BB for years.
> Can you substantiate
> that because you haven't read anything that there is nothing
> out there to read? How many languages do you read? The research
> could be so old it might be in Latin!
Of course I can't! That's a pointless question. The fact that I haven't found it in no way can mean it isn't there, and to suggest it would be supreme arrogance on my my part. Which is why I say explicitly that I don't expect or hope to convince anybody one way or the other about oiling - I just don't know anything beyond my own anecdotal experience. I simply resist anyone else's saying that the benefit of oiling is a necessary and obvious truth.
I'm sorry I wasn't as clear as I thought I was being. I'm generally pretty careful in what I write and I apparently wasn't explicit enough here. What I wrote was an implicit request for anyone who *has* access to such material to point me to it.
>
> And here is a very interesting document specific to Grenadilla
> and clarinets. I think it is worth taking the time to read it:
> http://www.google.com/url?q=http://nazarethmusic.com/boringoil.doc&sa=U&ei=7iKGVaybMMeYyATl4YCACA&ved=0CBoQFjAB&usg=AFQjCNFrwRfqBjR2XJHrQ1CHfXjZ6AEeaQ
>
I am, as I've said, in the process. But some tentative reaction to what I've read so far is below.
> Density of wood is not a factor in whether the wood absorbs
> water or not.
> The oil in the wood is what controls moisture
> absorption and all wood is hygroscopic. The research that
> established that and measured it is more than a hundred years
> old.
>
Can you cite a title and a source. That's certainly older than these BB threads. But, sorry as I may be, I speak English and read a little French and even less Spanish, so the reports will need to be in English, whether originally or in translation for me to read them with any understanding. I can read data tables and statistical treatments, though, which are fairly language-independent.
To press the point a little, I didn't say that Grenadilla doesn't absorb moisture. I said I've never been convinced "that it absorbs much of anything during playing," (italics added) which seems to be the main concern.
Naylor describes the "breathing" cycle as one caused by fluctuations in the wood's moisture content during and after playing. He makes the statement that the moisture level in the wood will rise and the instrument will swell during playing and that once it's swabbed and put away, the moisture content will fall and the wood will shrink. But in fact, he says in the next paragraph that there's no way directly to measure the moisture content of the wood. I don't know where the measurements he gives in his chart of relative moisture content come from, or how (if) he has actually measured the dimensional changes he cites as indirect manifestation of moisture fluctuations in the wood. Without detailed data, or citations of lab studies that do provide tables of observed, quantified data, what he writes sounds no different from any of the other anecdotal descriptions people present here - my question is always, "how does he know this?"
To be honest, I've never noticed dimensional changes in my instruments as I play - I may just not be paying attention or the changes may not be large enough to attract my notice. So I have to take Paul's and Larry Naylor's word for it that it happens. But then, I still would need to be shown that increased moisture content is the cause. Matter with certain fairly specific exceptions expands as it is heated and ciontracts when cooled because of molecular activity, whether it's taking on moisture or not.
When we're discussing the bore (and oiling it), we aren't talking about end grain, where the openings are still there of the tubes that carry moisture through a living plant. We also aren't talking about a highly porous surface that offers openings into the material along the bore's length. Could there still be enough water absorption through the bore's surface (assuming it's intact and not damaged) to cause the stresses that both Naylor and others here warn about? Maybe, but I need better evidence than someone's (even an expert repair person's) bald statement about it.
A research study includes a great deal that sits between the hypothesis statement and the final conclusions. Naylor doesn't offer any of it. If he based his essay on real research, I wish he had cited it specifically. If it exists, I'd like nothing better than to be pointed toward it. If it's all anecdotal observation I continue to be unconvinced.
Karl
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2015-06-22 03:27
Hey Karl,
I would really like to be around when you put an ice cold beer on the unprotected surface of your wife's favorite end table.
I'll even provide the beer!
..............Paul Aviles
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Author: Wes
Date: 2015-06-22 08:41
In the late 1980s, I oiled the bore of my 1985 Loree wood oboe with linseed oil, from someone's recommendation. The oboe became fully dead in sound and could not be played for about a week, until the oil had really dried. Paul Laubin has said that Lemon Pledge wax is a good treatment for wood oboes.
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2015-06-23 04:36
Dear Silversorcerer,
If you have any working knowledge of orange oil; would it be safe to say that it is more of a "cleaner," or perhaps have the "hardening" properties of linseed oil as you describe it?
..............Paul Aviles
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2015-06-23 16:45
Thank you "Silversorcerer" for the response.
And thank you "Dibbs" for the link.
All very interesting.
.............Paul Aviles
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2015-06-23 19:25
Dear "Silversorcerer,"
Ever since you first posted those photos (perhaps six months ago), that is the image that pops into my head whenever I approach oiling my clarinet or talking about oiling a clarinet.
Thanks again !!!!
...............Paul Aviles
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Author: BartHx
Date: 2015-06-23 19:53
In addition, the quantitative data the Doctor has published here as well leaves little room for doubt that oils do penetrate the wood -- some oils better than others. Logically, if you repeatedly oil a bore and let it sit overnight until, finally, there is oil remaining in the morning, that would also support that assertion. If you did not change the wood, the type of oil, or the environment the final application would demonstrate that the oil is not evaporating over night. In the absence of oil thirsty gremlins, the oil has to be going somewhere and there aren't that many options.
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Author: The Doctor ★2017
Date: 2015-06-26 20:21
(Disclaimer - I make and sell a plant oil mixture for clarinets and guitar fret boards and genuine Grenadilla Oil)
Very interesting discussion.
Just a few facts scientifically proven:
Wood does gain and loose moisture. In drying environments wood shrinks and rings get loose, add moisture in the environment and the wood expands and rings tighten. Oil content is also measurably reduced in hot dry environments. Plant oils bind water tightly and buffer water loss in Grenadilla wood.
As I have written in the past - a mixture of plant oils labeled with a fluorescent lipid molecule and applied to the surface of a piece of Grenadilla wood for 24 hours can be visualized by a fluorescent microscope looking at a thin section to penetrated deeply into the wood. Different oils or oil mixtures pentetrate at different rates. Most plant oils, if not protected by antioxidants, will turn rancid from autoxidation forming acidic products whcih can harm wood.
Analsyis of wood artifacts hundreds of years old yield some common results of oils used in pereserveation and museum conservators use some common formulations of oils in present day conservation of wood artifacts. All of these oils are of plant origin.
One customer, the largest seller of Grenadilla oboes in the US, gives a vial of Grenadilla oil and instructions for oiling with new oboes. His results over 5 years and several thousand oboes is a 25% reduction in all returned oboes for cracking. How this oil is used or not used is not important given the sample size with the only variable being the presence or absence of the oil. Of course oboes and clarinets are not the same animal.
L. Omar Henderson
www.doctorsprod.com
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