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Re: Need professional advice re: key cork

Author: Chris P
Date: 2018-11-05 18:53

I have used leather in the past on oboes and cors under the adjusting screws, but find with such concentrated contact on a small area, it will compress and become noisy. I've also seen saxes where someone's used leather on the back bars of the main action and that too hardens and becomes as noisy as metal-on-metal contact, so with that I choose not to use leather at all as a silencing material.

Tech cork/rubco/gummi-kork is much better for linkages and under adjusting screws in my opinion - if you want less friction, then coat it with graphite or a layer of Teflon provided it adheres well to the tech cork. It's no good for tenon corks though - natural cork is hard to beat for tenon corks.

The only place I use natural cork on clarinets (besides cork pads) is the throat A stopper cork and also on LH Ab/Eb levers where it can be sanded to give just enough free play as well as the LH F#/C# lever on some clarinets where it too needs a tiny amount of free play to ensure the pads aren't being held open. On open standing keys I use Ultrasuede or felt to keep the mechanical noise down and a nylon tipped adjusting screw on the throat G# key adjusting screw to give fine adjustment and a better gliding action rather than using cork or anything else there. On B&H clarinets they often drill right through the throat A key arm where the flat spring screw goes, so I use rubco coated with graphite there and dome and burnish the tip of the adjusting screw to a mirror finish.

On Buffet basset horns, the LH F/C lever is a lever key like the other LH levers and is pinned to the linkage on the RH F/C key, so it is far more positive than the usual set-up found on nearly every other clarinet. I'm sure this type of lever key could be fitted to soprano clarinets and it's about time it is tried out by someone with vision instead of sticking with convention. Although I suspect going against tradition will be faced with a backlash - as per bloody usual. How are we meant to progress if convention dictates that tradition is the only way?

Former oboe finisher
Howarth of London
1998 - 2010
The opinions I express are my own.

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