 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Ben Shaffer
Date: 2020-06-05 05:10
I'm entertaining getting a LeBlanc LL
Ive heard during a certain period they were rebored for a" bigger sound" and that reboring them actually turned out for the worse and left the Horns with Tuning Issues.
So was the reboring fact or Fiction and if so what years did it take place?.
Seems to me it would be a great deal of work to strip down the Instruments and rebore them.
But really my mine qustion is what time period was this done, if in fact it was
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Author: Steven Ocone
Date: 2020-06-06 02:17
It's a very confusing issue. I one in the shop right now (just it got ready for sale). I think I'll measure the bore.
Steve Ocone
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Author: r small
Date: 2020-06-08 00:23
It seems strange that a bore that was 14.80 mm to begin with would need to be re-bored for a "bigger sound". I'd like to see proof that there were any Leblancs that had been re-bored.
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Author: Nelson
Date: 2020-06-08 15:48
Hi,I'm fairly new to the list but I posted on this very subject a few weeks ago. I had been after a pair of LLs for quite a while and they eventually turned up on Ebay from the USA. I bought them with no opportunity to see them as I'm in South Australia but pretty concerned about this re-bore business so a long tense wait till they arrived. They were fine.
I have tried hard to get any facts at all on the re-bore process but have seen no evidence at all, until a couple of weeks ago. I didn't know whether it was just a rumour, or just someone trying the process out...but going through past issues of 'The Clarinet' I tumbled across Lee Gibson's review of the Leblanc LX (Vol 17 No 2) where Lee told of LXs with an advertised bore size of 14.6mm were actually measured at 14.73mm as delivered by Leblanc USA. He added that the process had now ceased. This was 1990
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Author: rgoldem
Date: 2020-06-08 21:43
How do you inspect or visually find out if it was rebored?
Post Edited (2020-06-08 22:07)
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Author: Steven Ocone
Date: 2020-06-10 00:33
The LL in my shop is at about 14.83 mm depending how you measure it. The barrel has an inverted cone starting at around 15 mm. The very top of the upper joint seems to have shrunk and I had to measure it a few cm down. I'll correct this issue. The bottom of the upper joint and top of the lower joint are also around 14.83mm. The bore, of course, is not perfectly round, so measurements can vary.
Steve Ocone
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Author: donald
Date: 2020-06-11 17:27
R Small - I always thought it was that they STARTED smaller in Paris and were re-bored to 14.8 when they got to Kenosha? NOT that they arrived in USA at 14.8 and were rebored to a larger diameter?
There is another version of this story (I call it a myth rather than story, but I have a lot of respect for Lee Gibson who believed it to be true).
It goes this way- Paris deliberately left the bores smaller on the clarinets destined for USA so that they could be rebored and retuned in Kenosha. This was because they were aware that the change in weather etc would result in the bore changing and thought this was a solution (ie not finishing the bore etc until after the big environmental change). I was told that Kenosha were happy to rebore the instruments (can be done without taking all the keys off, I've watched it being done) but then didn't devote much time or energy to any testing or retuning.
I have no idea if THIS version of the story is true. It's likely that there's more than one version of the story, and that each of them were true at one time or other... I don't think it's entirely myth...
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Author: Hank Lehrer
Date: 2020-06-11 20:02
Hi All,
If I might humbly suggest that since Tom Ridenour was at LeBlanc about this time he might be wiling to provide first hand information on the reboring. As I recall from an email chat with him many years ago, he indicated that this was not a myth. Unfortunately, I can't remember exactly what he said was done.
BTW, I have a LeBlanc L200 from that era that is incredibly well intune; it is built like a tank. I use it for pit jobs and as a backup for my Yamaha CS.
HRL
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Author: NOLA Ken
Date: 2020-06-12 00:06
I have a 1967(?) Leblanc Classic II that I measure the bore on at 14.98mm (effectively 15.00) top and bottom of the upper joint. That's the same as my post-1985 Pete Fountain "big bore" model both as sited in several places and as measured. Everything I've been able to find (as well as the expert opinion of one top clarinet restorer) indicates that the Classic II had a bore of 14.80. I guess it's possible that somebody at Leblanc slapped a Classic II imprint on a Dynamic H or PF body, but then it should play much, much better than it does. The Classic II has never played as well as the PF - not anywhere close to as well the PF. Of the four Leblanc Paris clarinets I have it's the worst of the lot by far. The reboring "myth" seems to fit what I've got here quite well. Either that or someone at Leblanc really goofed big time.
If this is in fact one of apocryphal rebored clarinets, it would seem to contradict the hypothesis that Leblanc Paris underbored clarinets, leaving it to Leblanc USA to rebore them to the proper specs.
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Author: Johan H Nilsson
Date: 2020-06-13 00:39
Nelson wrote: "where Lee told of LXs with an advertised bore size of 14.6mm were actually measured at 14.73mm as delivered by Leblanc USA"
An actual instrument in someone's hands would be the ultimate evidence.
I am skeptical of this theory since it doesn't make sense to assemble a clarinet in France, ship it to the US, disassemble the key work, thumb tube and register tube, re-ream both the joints and reassemble everything.
My LX is 14.6 mm at the bottom of the upper joint, 14.9 at the top, with a reverse cone starting at 15 mm and ending at the thumb tube. I live in Europe but bought it 2nd hand from the US.
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Author: Johan H Nilsson
Date: 2020-06-13 00:48
Steven Ocone wrote: "The LL in my shop is at about 14.83 mm".
That's the dimension the European LL:s have, so it is a white swan. The black swan would be a 15.00 mm LL.
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Author: NOLA Ken
Date: 2020-06-13 05:51
I just had a strange experience. I stumbled across a listing for an overhauled Leblanc Classic (the model earlier than my Classic II) for sale on the web site of a tech. He lists the bore on the Classic he has for sale as .590", essentially 15mm - just like mine. That's only the second one I've seen anybody actually report. I have a query out to him to see what he knows about that particular clarinet.
I know this thread started out as questions about rebored LLs. Has anyone actually seen a LL that had a bore significantly larger than 14.80?
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Author: donald
Date: 2020-06-13 17:38
Now I think about it, I thought it was the LX clarinet that was supposedly subjected to the rebore upon entry to USA, not the LL? It shouldn't be too hard to find the Lee Gibson article ("Clarinalysis") where he made this assertion... (and yes, I'll be Tom Ridenour knows all about it) dn
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