 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Chris P
Date: 2017-03-29 20:57
Please stop the madness in making completely ringless barrels and bells and support your sockets.
It doesn't matter how thick the decorative turnings are on the sockets as it's still the same wood as the rest of the barrel or bell and IT WILL CRACK.
If you like the ringless appearance, then you can do two things to avert the inevitable split sockets:
1 - Machine a slot around the end of the sockets and fit carbon fibre bands.
2 - If you like the all wood look, fit a metal band around the socket and fit a wooden ring over that to hide it.
Former oboe finisher
Howarth of London
1998 - 2010
The opinions I express are my own.
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Author: Ed
Date: 2017-03-29 21:22
I imagine it may be possible to also use a discreet ring of delrin or other similar material.
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Author: fskelley
Date: 2017-03-29 22:42
One imagines that in the clarinet factory, every day is ___less Friday.
Stan in Orlando
EWI 4000S with modifications
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Author: kdk
Date: 2017-03-29 23:23
I've always suspected this to be true, but is there an accumulation of anecdotal evidence to support it? Chris, have you had to repair a large number of cracked ringless sockets?
Karl
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Author: Caroline Smale
Date: 2017-03-30 01:02
The Buffet ringless sockets have seen do in fact have a carbon fibre band fitted but it is quite small and often poorly executed.
I have seen one cracked socket resulting from such a poorly fitted carbon band.
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Author: ClaV
Date: 2017-03-30 02:15
Using many ringless barrels (largely Backun) only one cracked badly - tulipwood Eb. Crazy glue worked surprisingly well to make it functional again.
At the same rate - inner cracks in the bore of barrels with rings have been observed as often.
So perceptions may be different from the true/facts.
Post Edited (2017-03-30 02:17)
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Author: clarnibass
Date: 2017-03-30 08:55
The metal rings can help against cracking, but statistically I can't say I've seen ringless barrels crack much more than other barrels. Maybe a little more but hard to say how much.
>> I imagine it may be possible to also use a discreet ring of delrin or other similar material. <<
Delrin specifically machines really nicely, but has poor thermal expansion properties and pretty lousy for gluing too. So it's probably not a good choice for this. Would any plastic really help with this against the force of the wood trying to crack? I'm guessing not really... or at least not much...
Buffet plastic socket rings were/are a major complaint by many repairers, though they only used them on plastic clarinets where cracking doesn't happen in the same way.
Post Edited (2017-04-01 09:04)
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Author: Lelia Loban ★2017
Date: 2017-03-30 17:28
I'm an amateur and all of my clarinets are oldies with metal rings, but fwiw -- at flea markets and yard sales, by far the most common damage I see on wooden clarinets of all ages is a cracked barrel.
This is anecdotal evidence, not statistical proof of anything, but at yard sales, most of the owners of these damaged instruments have told me that while taking a clarinet apart or putting it together, they'd dropped the barrel on a hard floor in a classroom or on concrete when playing outdoors. Barrel droppage seems to be a very common accident. I've heard enough such remarks to give me the impression that barrel cracks in these older instruments are less likely to have happened spontaneously (due to manufacturing whoopsies such as bad combinations of materials or parts that fit badly) and more likely to have happened by accident.
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: dorjepismo ★2017
Date: 2017-03-30 18:45
Chris, any thoughts on the desirability of carbon vs. metal, or the assertion that carbon leads to a freer-blowing horn? Thanks!
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Author: J. J.
Date: 2017-03-30 19:59
I've seen plenty of ringless barrels crack, but my own experience is this: the only barrel I've ever had crack was a metal-ringed barrel.
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Author: Caroline Smale
Date: 2017-03-30 20:36
Metal rings are provided to help prevent cracks in the socket caused by the wood fibres being forced apart when the tenon is inserted.
They will not prevent cracks caused by physical dropping or thermal/humidity éxpansion of the main body of wood, although they can help to prevent such cracks from spreading.
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Author: Grabnerwg
Date: 2017-03-30 22:42
I have had both barrels with rings and barrels without rings crack.... one each.
In both cases, I was forcing too tight a fit between the barrel and the upper tenon. You would think that after all these years, I would have known better!
So....if the barrel is too tight to fit comfortably, don't force it, have it adjusted.
Walter Grabner
www.clarinetxpress.com
World Class Clarinet Mouthpieces
Buffet Clarinets
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Author: Barry Vincent
Date: 2017-03-31 02:08
I have several of Tom Riderour's lovely fat Ebonite barrels with nice shiny metals rings. They'll NEVER crack but they will turn a 'lovely' army green over time.
Skyfacer
Post Edited (2017-03-31 02:09)
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Author: BrianLundberg
Date: 2017-03-31 21:11
My experience does not agree with the OP.
Proper break-in and using orange peels to humidify the case works great to stabilize the wood. Rotate new orange peels as necessary, especially in the dry climates and seasons.
I like what Grabnerwg wrote:
"So....if the barrel is too tight to fit comfortably, don't force it, have it adjusted."
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Author: Chris P
Date: 2017-04-01 02:43
If you understand the structure of wood, then you'll agree that all sockets will need reinforcing. Wood will split along the lines of grain where it is at its weakest. No amount of rotating orange peel is going to add strength to that.
Why do you think other hollow wooden things such as file handles have ferrules? Simple - to prevent them splitting.
Just as with sockets on woodwind instruments. They need reinforcing to prevent them splitting when the tenon cork exerts pressure from within. Sockets are at their most vulnerable when the socket ring is loose or missing, but are strongest with a well fitted socket ring.
This is a century old practice and has passed the test of time.
Former oboe finisher
Howarth of London
1998 - 2010
The opinions I express are my own.
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Author: ClaV
Date: 2017-04-01 19:43
Wood and metal have different thermal expansions and, most importantly, expansion due to humidity.
So the "perfectly fit" metal ring can exist only for a given constant humidity.
Loose rings in dry conditions are a commonly observable scenario. Stress due to the wood expansion in high humidity, while contained by a perfectly fit metal ring in drier conditions, is not easily observable but often translates to bore distortions/cracks (since wood expansion must take place somewhere).
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Author: jonnyswife
Date: 2017-04-03 00:22
I've recently bought a ringless barrel... My eyes were open though since everyone I know who has one has had a crack :-/ We shall see! In twenty years I've not had a single crack in my ringed barrels...
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Author: kdk
Date: 2017-04-03 00:47
Chris P wrote:
> It doesn't matter how thick the decorative turnings are on the
> sockets as it's still the same wood as the rest of the barrel
> or bell and IT WILL CRACK.
>
I guess there has been a wide range of reaction to this with no clear consensus. My intuition tells me that a ringless barrel seems more likely to crack under adverse conditions of use. But my own anecdotal experience is that I have a number of barrels, some ringless, some with traditional metal rings. My ringless barrels are produced by Clark Fobes and Morrie Backun. None of them has cracked in all the years I've owned (and sometimes used) them. I also have several barrels with standard rings at the socket ends and none of them has ever cracked, either. So the extreme insistence that a ringless barrel "WILL CRACK" seems hyperbolic. What my experience suggests to me is that if you don't force your barrel onto a tenon that's too tight a fit and don't for some reason rock your barrel on the tenon in an aggressive way (e.g. to get a stuck barrel unstuck), you may not need to worry about cracking the ringless barrel because of stress.
If the wood has a serious imperfection in its grain, I doubt that a metal ring will stop the wood from splitting at the weak spot along the grain. But, again, I've never had a barrel crack at all, ever (nor have any of my students), so even that doubt is pure conjecture on my part.
Karl
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Author: kdk
Date: 2017-04-03 01:58
Chris P wrote:
> It doesn't matter how thick the decorative turnings are on the
> sockets as it's still the same wood as the rest of the barrel
> or bell and IT WILL CRACK.
>
I guess there has been a wide range of reaction to this with no clear consensus. My intuition tells me that a ringless barrel seems more likely to crack under adverse conditions of use. But my own anecdotal experience is that I have a number of barrels, some ringless, some with traditional metal rings. My ringless barrels are produced by Clark Fobes and Morrie Backun. None of them has cracked in all the years I've owned (and sometimes used) them. I also have several barrels with standard rings at the socket ends and none of them has ever cracked, either. So the extreme insistence that a ringless barrel "WILL CRACK" seems hyperbolic. What my experience suggests to me is that if you don't force your barrel onto a tenon that's too tight a fit and don't for some reason rock your barrel on the tenon in an aggressive way (e.g. to get a stuck barrel unstuck), you may not need to worry about cracking the ringless barrel because of stress.
If the wood has a serious imperfection in its grain, I doubt that a metal ring will stop the wood from splitting at the weak spot along the grain. But, again, I've never had a barrel crack at all, ever (nor have any of my students), so even that doubt is pure conjecture on my part.
Karl
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