 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: shmuelyosef
Date: 2017-05-21 00:34
Let me preface this commentary and request with some background. I'm an ex-machinist, Ph.D. scientist by training, and a little like Alan Segal in that I am also a musician and woodworker (both in 'semi-professional' capacity). I also do a modest amount of instrument modification and repair on woodwinds and pianos. I do not currently make my own barrels.
I play older clarinets, and as is often discussed, original barrels are often missing and the dimensions unknown. I have measured many barrels carefully and have a small database. I've never seriously collected aftermarket barrels. I recently acquired a couple of older clarinets that did not have original barrels, and have had a little difficulty getting them to play well.
In searching around, I found that virtually NONE of the existing vendors were willing to share the dimensions of the barrels that they sell so I could at least understand if they were in the range on interest of barrels that could work. Several (like Ridenour for example) make two different designs, but little information other than "these for R-13 and RC" and "these are for older clarinets". However, a Leblanc LL is way different than a Selmer Centered Tone, but I can make some measurements on the upper joint (and original mouthpiece if it exists) and make some guesses about the design of the barrel.
I get it, that they feel their design is proprietary, however if someone wanted to copy their design they could just buy it and measure...so a few $100 of reverse engineering could displace this objection. It would not be worth getting the design and spending a day of custom machining and hand finishing, plus the cost of a blank, etc...to make one of these for my own use either. I would just buy it. I have bought and returned a few barrels, found one that is close and I might modify slightly. If I had a catalog of the designs available, I could make an informed choice and choose a vendor that is close, have them (or myself) make a small modification and be onward.
Just curious if others are frustrated that you can't even get the input and output diameters from the vendors?
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Author: kdk ★2017
Date: 2017-05-21 00:53
I'm not sure they're that consistent in all cases. I've often gotten non-custom barrels from the same maker (well-known names) and found that they measured differently. The taper (in a reverse-tapered barrel) is likely to be nearly the same but actual top and bottom measurements are different from one barrel to the other.
Karl
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Author: Tony F
Date: 2017-05-21 02:04
Like some of you, I've also accumulated a drawer full of barrels, and I also mostly play older instruments. The barrel is frequently missing or damaged when I buy these instruments, and in most cases I can find a barrel in my junk drawer that works although it may not be as the original maker intended. Sometimes I've found a barrel that works only to find that when I later measure an original barrel for the instrument that it is quite different dimensionally.
I've made a few barrels to the dimensions of originals and they generally work well, although sometimes not as well as my junk-box barrel of different or unknown provenance. Tapered bores provide something of a problem, but there is one thing that I've noticed. If you measure the rate of taper, where there is a single taper, regardless of the upper and lower measurements they often correspond closely to the rate of taper of a standard Morse reamer.
There are other standard industrial reamer sizes and it may be that these will be represented as well. I'm sure that some makers have reamers made to their own specifications but I think these are probably mostly the specialist makers.
Tony F.
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Author: shmuelyosef
Date: 2017-05-21 04:39
Your experience on tapers is very different from my observations. A typical Morse taper has a substantially higher angle taper than any barrel I have observed. Here is a table:
http://littlemachineshop.com/reference/tapers.php
Note that these are "half-angles" or angles from center. A typical barrel has about 30mm or so of actual clarinet bore. At a half-angle of 1.4 degrees (smallest of the Morse tapers), the diameter change using such a taper would be:
2 * SIN( 1.4 degrees) * 30mm = 0.73mm or 1.47mm (0.058")
The most extreme barrel that I have measured has a diameter change (over the bore) of 0.28mm in diameter. This is a half-angle of 0.27 degrees...a factor of 5 smaller. The Moennig taper (generally assumed to be from 0.589" to 0.580") works out to about 0.22 degrees for a 66mm barrel.
Ferrees Tool company sells a clarinet barrel reamer but I haven't been able to get them to tell me what the taper angle is...Curtis Ferree just said:
"Very slight tapper pretty much fits everything. Built this tool about 18 years ago with Charlie Bay and it`s the same to this day and the only one we have for this kind of work"
I have not found another commercially available tool, so I suspect that this is what most folks are using if they are reaming. It is hard to set a tool-slide to a very small taper with any accuracy, although it can be done (after a dozen test cuts!). I do know that a couple of shops have bought custom reamers (e.g. Muncy Winds uses a lower angle taper, as does the makers of the Chadash barrel). Some vendors just cut multiple straight bores and then finish by hand. For example, if you want 0.1mm(radius) over 30mm length, you just move the cross-slide 0.01mm every time you crank 3mm on the cross-slide. A 0.02mm step will sand out and polish up nicely. This is nice for one-offs, or OK if you have a numerically controlled (NC) lathe, but otherwise not so great for production. All of these will require some hand-finishing, so there will always be variability, but it should be controllable to much less than 0.1mm in the final diameter.
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Author: Grabnerwg
Date: 2017-05-21 18:57
You didn't ask me..........
Walter Grabner
www.clarinetxpress.com
New and used Buffet Clarinets
World Class Hand Crafted mouthpieces
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Author: Alseg
Date: 2017-05-21 20:06
Disclaimer: I make and sell custom made barrels. I make them one at a time with hand reaming techniques, so they are not standardized.
I sometimes provide the measurements to the client who has purchased a barrel from me when it is ready to ship.
I do not publish them because The measurements vary depending upon many factors that I consider when making the barrel:
1. the mouthpiece used. (entry bore)
2. the style of music that the client plays.(backboring of the exit may be used in certain circumstances)
3.the intonation tendencies of the clients' instrument
4.the wood species chose
5.where I choose to place the zone of steepest inclination
6.Sometimes I will overbore a given specimen slightly (thousandth of an inch) knowing that it will narrow during shipping depending on the climate and the wood.
FWIW The Morse taper (#1 or #2) is **DEFINITELY NOT** the standard taper dimension for most taper barrels that I have seen, and that includes some older specimens.
Hope this helps.
Former creator of CUSTOM CLARINET TUNING BARRELS by DR. ALLAN SEGAL
-Where the Sound Matters Most(tm)-
Post Edited (2017-05-23 17:15)
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Author: clarnibass
Date: 2017-05-22 09:34
Morse taper angle varies by size and and as same as shmuelyosef, no barrel that I've ever measured had a taper anywhere near a Morse taper.
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Author: The Doctor ★2017
Date: 2017-05-23 18:26
(Disclaimer - I make barrel and sell barrels)
As Allan has said the taper for any particular barrel depends on a number of different factors which he has outlined. The material also has a lot to do with what taper is used. We have found that in making barrels out of hard rubber that a completely different taper from most wooden barrels works best, at least for Buffet clarinets. The dimensions of the bore of the barrel is more consistent with hard rubber because heat and humidity do not play a big factor in changes in bore dimensions. All of our barrels are completely made using CNC machining with a custom made taper rod tool reamer for the bore which makes the barrels more consistent than using a hand reamer.
L. Omar Henderson
www.doctorsprod.com
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Author: Maddmatts
Date: 2017-05-24 02:11
When I had access to an appropriately sized 3-point bore micrometers at work I took some measurements of an Accubore B66, Drake Ceramic (66mm) and the OEM barrel of my old Yamaha CS-V (65mm). The differences between them are substantial. The Accubore was very nearly, but not quite cylindrical, while the Drake had a lot more convergence. The Yamaha was somewhere in the middle.
The Drake's pilot bores for the mouthpiece and upper joint were noticeably tighter than the others and might be a contributing factor of reports of their exteriors cracking after some use.
One thing I found odd was that the outlet of the Yamaha barrel was smaller than the inlet diameter of the upper joint whereas the Accubore was nearly perfectly matched. I take it that bore-matching isn't all that critical?
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Author: shmuelyosef
Date: 2017-05-24 05:30
Walter....didnt realize that you were back in the barrel biz. I love my K14, but I don't play Buffet
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Author: Alseg
Date: 2017-05-24 16:34
Maddmatts, a step off in diameter from the exit bore of the barrel to the upper joint is common
Former creator of CUSTOM CLARINET TUNING BARRELS by DR. ALLAN SEGAL
-Where the Sound Matters Most(tm)-
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Author: Chris P
Date: 2017-05-24 18:38
If the same tapered reamer is used, then the diameter at one end of the barrel bore will be different with different length length barrels. So a shorter barrel will have a narrower bore diameter at the end that's been shortened.
If the same measurements for both ends of the barrel bore are strictly adhered to on every length barrel, then the bore taper will be different on different length barrels.
Former oboe finisher
Howarth of London
1998 - 2010
The opinions I express are my own.
Post Edited (2017-05-25 02:46)
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Author: Alseg
Date: 2017-05-25 21:27
Chris P wrote:
> If the same tapered reamer is used, then the diameter at one
> end of the barrel bore will be different with different length
> length barrels. So a shorter barrel will have a narrower bore
> diameter at the end that's been shortened.
>
> If the same measurements for both ends of the barrel bore are
> strictly adhered to on every length barrel, then the bore taper
> will be different on different length barrels.
>
>
> Post Edited (2017-05-25 02:46)
Precisely!!! That is why I have a multiplicity of reamers for any given barrel order. And you would not believe the variations in bore dimension of the barrels that people send to me to alter. One well know highly touted one was about the right diameter for a drinking straw (ok, exaggerated, but you get the idea)
Former creator of CUSTOM CLARINET TUNING BARRELS by DR. ALLAN SEGAL
-Where the Sound Matters Most(tm)-
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Author: clarnibass
Date: 2017-05-30 10:30
Chris and Alseg are right. I measured a standard tapered barrel for Buffet clarinets which happens to be excellent. Taper was 0.35 degrees included angle. Calculating the difference, by using the same reamer on a barrel 1mm shorter, keeping one side the same diameter, the other would change by about 0.006mm (smaller and larger for the larger and smaller sides respectively). Though even measuring a wood barrel to under 0.01mm (which I did... to 0.001mm) is a little ridiculous
Maybe one of the barrel makers here can explain what specific difference that would cause (vs. using a different reamer that is 0.006mm larger on one side i.e. different taper)?
BTW using a hard stop on the reamer, different weather might drastically change the result. Using different materials would change the result (with the same reamer). Different material of barrel and clarinet would be affect by temperature/humidity differently by more than that amount. Even same wood barrels can react differently because wood is not completely even. etc.
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Author: Shostakovich
Date: 2017-06-03 13:08
I would personally love to know the measurements of the new Buffet Icon barrel - it's a total mystery to me.
* Buffet's engineers describe it as a "conical bore"
* The diagrams have it labeled as an inverse conical bore
* Those same diagrams display it as a conical bore
* The name "ICON" probably comes from "Inverse-conical"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sg3s1ajfBMM (see 25 seconds into this video).
Is it or is it not conical!?
All I really know is that they have an amazing ability to open up my tone, particularly working wonders on the throat notes down to F, E and D.
Anyone able to shed light on these barrels? I wouldn't mind turning a mock-up one in my workshop.
Post Edited (2017-06-03 13:15)
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Author: Alseg
Date: 2017-06-03 18:21
My "inverse taper" or "reverse cone" or whatever it is du jour is sometimes concave or sometimes convex and it tapers to a zone of inflection (my term, although "appropriated" using a synonym by someone else AFTER I described it) and other times not curved.
Beyond the inflection zone (which I place at a point determined after corresponding with the client) the bore may be cylindrical, counter bored (back-bored at the exit, or less tapered, again dependent on the needs of the client. Sometimes it is just a straight taper and other times hourglass. It depends on what you want to achieve. Mind you, this is done by hand on my wooden models.
The entry and exit and bore shapes are adjusted for the different lengths of barrel
My bore is NEVER the dimensions of a standard Morse taper!!! OK, I do have some Morse reamers, and I use them to keep my lathe arbor spiffy.
To muddy the waters further: I designed a taper for hard rubber Chedeville(TM) models for Dr. Omar Henderson. These are CNC machined. I will not discuss those dimensions here, as I am not the owner of that copyright.
Former creator of CUSTOM CLARINET TUNING BARRELS by DR. ALLAN SEGAL
-Where the Sound Matters Most(tm)-
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Author: Alseg
Date: 2017-06-04 18:43
Ed Palanker wrote:
> It don't mean a thing if it ain't got the ring. :-)
>
Naw, Mine don't have metal rings.
Former creator of CUSTOM CLARINET TUNING BARRELS by DR. ALLAN SEGAL
-Where the Sound Matters Most(tm)-
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