 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Kalashnikirby
Date: 2018-10-03 19:53
Ever since I started overhauling clarinets as a hobby, I had to learn that the cup diameter of a clarinet doesn't necessarily have to be the actual pad diameter.
At the same time, here in Germany, Pisoni pads are incredibly popular and it's difficult to find anything different as a private person. For some reason, their premium deluxe skin pads are shouldered, but their leather pads arent, and I always had a hard time fitting the usually recommended 9,5mm leather pad into a 8.75mm Buffet cup. By the way, thats also a common size for Yamaha upper joints.
Obviously, this problem cannot really be solved by pressing a leather pad into the cup, hoping it forms some kind of shoulder on its own (it doesn't and always slightly exceeds the original pad height); but WHY, WHYYYY did those manufacturers have to produce too small cups for relatively large tone holes? Why not make them .75mm larger? On German system clarinets, the pad sizes usually matches the cup size, and thus the ever so popular Pisoni pad fits without problems.
Anyways, is there any solution to this? Looking at dawkes.co.uk, they now offer Buffet sized procls pad sets. They also stock Lucien deluxe, but I'm not so much a fan of skin pads, especially not on the lower joint (although unshouldered pads for the larger cups wouldn't be an issue there)
Best regards
Christian
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Author: Caroline Smale
Date: 2018-10-04 01:48
WHY are you trying to force a 9.5mm leather pad into an 8,75mm cup ??
You might manage to make a 9,0mm pad fit OK or alternately an 8,5mm should be fine.
The obvious approach a repairer takes it to measure the cup, and the find the best fitting pad.
In a stock of any given "size" of pad, if you measure them there is frequently quite a bit of variance. This can work to one's advantage when faced with an odd sized cup.
Think yourself lucky you don't work on flutes. With those the precision of fit in the cup, levelness of the surface, and levelness to the seating is much more critical
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Author: Kalashnikirby
Date: 2018-10-04 09:31
I'm sorry, but this was not helpful at all, especially the last part.
The 9.5mm were based on a recommendation I got for Pisoni pads. Also, if the pad cup isn't perfectly aligned with the tone hole, which happens often enough, 9mm or even 8.5mm arent enough and the pad cannot seal. Happened to me on an Oehler clarinet recently and I had to squeeze in a 0.5mm larger pad. It's not like I can't align a pad, jeez. It's still possible to seat them correctly, too...
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Author: m1964
Date: 2018-10-04 16:57
Kalashnikirby wrote:
> I'm sorry, but this was not helpful at all, especially the last
> part.
> The 9.5mm were based on a recommendation I got for Pisoni pads.
> Also, if the pad cup isn't perfectly aligned with the tone
> hole, which happens often enough, 9mm or even 8.5mm arent
> enough and the pad cannot seal. Happened to me on an Oehler
> clarinet recently and I had to squeeze in a 0.5mm larger pad.
> It's not like I can't align a pad, jeez. It's still possible to
> seat them correctly, too...
The 9.5mm recommendation is probably for the skin pads, not for the leather pads.
It is a little difficult to achieve good seal with the 9mm leather pads esp. on the side keys...
I am an amateur and only re-pad my own instruments but I had my r13 re-padded by a tech using leather pads and the clarinet holds vacuum well.
I re- padded myself my A clarinet (also Bufet) using Pisoni skin pads and it is not holding the vacuum as well as the one done professionally...
If I played professionally I would not repad the A myself, it would go to a pro...
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Author: Bob Bernardo
Date: 2018-10-04 17:59
Well try cork pads. I think they sound better than leather pads as leather often deadens the sound a bit too much. Also leather pads have too much give in my opinion. Too soft and your fingers press down too far. Cork is harder.
In the USA a lot of repairmen still use cork pads on the upper register. I do. If you can't find cork pads try JL Smith in the USA. In the old days I made my own cork pads from wine bottles. The trick is to avoid the tiny holes in the cork. You can buy a hole bunch to make this easier. I think you can get the exact pad size from JL Smith but you need to still cut them down slightly with a razer blade. I also like to sand the pad using 5000 to 10,000 grit sandpaper for a really smooth pad finish.
Lastly they will last years longer. 10 years or more. Maybe 15 years. Hope this helps. Oh, If you still can't find cork and JL Smith won't ship send me an email. I'll send them to you.
Designer of - Vintage 1940 Cicero Mouthpieces and the La Vecchia mouthpieces
Yamaha Artist 2015
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Author: Kalashnikirby
Date: 2018-10-06 01:54
Thanks Bob, actually I had some cork pads in stock and finally tried them on my RC... That is to say, installed 2 on the upper RH side trills to see how they do. I'm really intrigued and ordered more.
Re shouldered leather, it turns out hardly anyone makes them! Since Buffet cups have odd sized cupps (like 14,7mm for the Eb/Ab key), I'd definitely pick the next size. A 15mm pad in said key is enough to seal the hole, but the impression on the pad shows only about 0.5mm space left, which might be too close to the edge. But it seals well when seated correctly. Still, not as the maker exactly intended.
The only shouldered leather pads I've found have to be bought in sets offered by Pisoni
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Author: Caroline Smale
Date: 2018-10-08 01:49
I am sorry you didn't find my post helpful, I was merely trying to point out that you were making a fundamental mistake in trying to use a "specified" pad size that clearly was nowhere near the correct one for that cup.
Practical assessment will generally trump theory.
If you are still having problems with cups that are not concentric with their toneholes that bending cannot fix - then grinding or scraping the inside edge of the cup to increase it's diameter, biased in the desired direction, is another step that can allow a pad of 0.5 - 1 mm larger to be fitted.
Done it many times during my 25 year professional repairing career.
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Author: Kalashnikirby
Date: 2018-11-02 21:07
Well, my solution now was to buy 9.5mm cork pads and modify them to have the same dimensions as the original fishskin pads when fitted to the cup (see attachments). I overhealed all of the closed pads on the upper joint.
When set correctly, they seal very well and have a fantastic, fast feel to them, because they don't have the tendencies to sink into the tone hole like leather pads do.
Truth be told though, the padding job with the 9.5mm pads before that was just fine, too. When I removed them, many of them had formed shoulders, lol.
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Author: KenJarczyk
Date: 2018-11-02 21:43
Interesting.
Don’t touch my horns.
Ken Jarczyk
Woodwinds Specialist
Eb, C, Bb, A & Bass Clarinets
Soprano, Alto, Tenor & Baritone Saxophones
Flute, Alto Flute, Piccolo
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Author: dorjepismo ★2017
Date: 2018-11-02 23:06
To address your question about shouldered pads, I'd always thought that if the size of the part of the pad that goes into the cup was right, then they'd be relatively easy to seat, and the amount of the pad sticking up above the cup would always be uniform. That said, I don't use them. Every single time I've bought a "set" of pads for my instruments, whether Buffet or B&H, the sizes haven't matched exactly, so I don't buy those anymore. I don't care what anyone recommends, the pad should fit into the cup somewhat snugly but without being forced, and to get that, I've had to buy pads of different diameters separately. One size does not fit all. The large pads seem to need additional card stock backing, for which one can use thin spacers for flute pads, if you happen to have destroyed the original backing while removing the old pad, as I invariably do.
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Author: clarnibass
Date: 2018-11-03 10:16
It's worth emphasizing that the 9.5mm diameter was either suggested for stepped pads or a mistake. As mentioned, pads are matched to keys, not the other way around. So the problem in fitting 9.5mm non-stepped pads to key cups that were too small was that the pads had the wrong size. The method I use (and I imagine most repairers) is to stock many sizes and use the correct one.
Even the same model of clarinet from a different times can have different diameter keys. From vague memory... Buffet specifically used to have keys 0.25mm to 0.5mm smaller.
Stepped leather pads are almost never made or used. You've found the advantage of stepped pads, which is relevant sometimes, but there is a downside too.
Re the keys not being aligned with tone holes, making a non-stepped pad barely able to seal, was it the front/back or to the side? If the latter, and it would not hit another key that can't be moved, then simply aligning it is normal. If it's the former, that often means a major repair that is usually not worth it (cost-wise) to most people.
Some older Buffet clarinets had a run with a front/back misaligned F/C key which was a little annoying.
Although it's not possible to be sure, but looks like the key in your photo is misaligned in a way that would be easy to improve.
Post Edited (2018-11-03 10:20)
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Author: Tony F
Date: 2018-11-03 12:26
I've always considered that aligning the pad cups to the tone holes is a normal part of re-padding. As has been stated, adjusting side to side and tilted is fairly easy. Adjustment front to back is more difficult, but it can generally be done by careful selection of pads and shaping of pad cups. When I buy shouldered pads I carefully check them, looking for pads with some degree of offset or eccentricity. These I put to one side, and they are the ones that I use with unfixable pad cup misalignment. If I order pads for a specific instrument I always order a few more than I need, in the same size and one size up and down from that. The leftovers go into my pad drawers to sort out situations like that described here.
Tony F.
Post Edited (2018-11-03 19:06)
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Author: shmuelyosef
Date: 2018-11-04 05:28
I have a couple of clarinets (including my favorite Centered Tone) that have the Valentino Master's Brown pads in the upper joint (the other is a Vito V40). These have a bevel on the back and one can easily float them as they 'rock' in the pad cup. They are thin and you need to use a precise amount of glue to get them floating and still leave plenty of venting room.
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Author: Kalashnikirby
Date: 2018-11-04 20:25
Well it's true, some of the key cups would need to be tilted (the cup needs to be rotated in an axial direction), but
I don't have the best pliers to definitely adjust them without scratches and got them seated just fine. Though I should start thinking about that, I suppose.
Still, the 11.5mm pad for the F#/B key has only 0.5mm so space between the impression and pad shoulder, even though the pad cup measures only 11.2mm. The original beveled one was 12,5mm for a reason.
I know of some dental technicians that can bend some pretty thick wire for certain orthodontical appliances with just their hands so I might just need to work out more, haha!
Also, I pretty much realised that the shoulder helps to completely center a pad in it's respective cup, buts it's fairly pointless as soon as the key cup itself isn't aligned to the tone hole. Which might be one of the reasons why a stock buffet doesn't seal so well.
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Author: Tony F
Date: 2018-11-05 01:43
You might like to check out these tools from Music Medic. I'd suggest the first two as "must have" and the second two as "nice to have".
https://musicmedic.com/products/repair-tools/pliers/brass-jawed-pliers.html
https://musicmedic.com/products/repair-tools/pliers/parallel-open-duckbill-pliers.html
https://musicmedic.com/products/repair-tools/pliers/medium-duckbill-plier.html
https://musicmedic.com/products/repair-tools/pliers/chain-nose-parallel-pliers.html
Tony F.
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Author: shmuelyosef
Date: 2018-11-11 10:46
Don't remember where I got them, but I have a couple pair (different sizes) of parallel jaw pliers with brass jaw inserts; they are by far my most used pliers along with my very long slim duckbills. I have replaced the jaws once on the larger pair (had to make the new ones from some sheet brass).
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Author: Caroline Smale
Date: 2018-11-12 01:27
Ferees certainly used to stock them (at a price)
But it's not too difficult to add brass shims to regular parallel pliers.
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