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Re: Selmer 9 Full Boehm rattle

Author: Chris P
Date: 2020-09-07 10:35

I've also been using the corners of small plastic bags cut off which form a nice pocket to fit over metal pins and a drop of thick oil in them both keeps them in place and silences them, plus they last for ages and can be replaced dead easily as and when they need to.

Another thing I've done is replace the pins with modified Buffet nylon pins that are also reinforced with a steel core which makes them unbreakable instead of using them as is. A drop of thick oil also silences them.

Metal pins can't be made a metal-on-metal snug fit in the lingkages, especially the LH F#/C# one as that has tons of movement in it compared to a regular one without the LH Ab/Eb lever.

So-called 'fish skin' which is the intestinal membrane from cattle which is also used as goldbeaters' skin to seal oboe reeds as well as sausage skin and natural gut strings (yet another so-called term as 'cat gut') is the usual go-to method to silence these pins, but like a lot of things, there are much better materials than sticking to ancient and tired old traditional methods. Traditionalists need to get with the times and ditch that has-been oldy-worldy ways that had their day decades ago.

Another cause of noise in the LH levers is their fit both on the rod screws and between the pillars. The F#/C# does need a bit of lateral play because of how it interacts with the connecting arm to prevent it from binding up. The Ab/Eb lever needs to be a tight fit on its rod screw and between the pillars as any wobble will cause it to rattle against the sides of the F#/C# and E/B levers which it sits in between and moves at a different plane to them because of the shorter pillars (instead of having equal height pillars like Leblancs which all move in the same plane as each other). The E/B lever can also be made a good fit between the pillars as that has far less movement than the F#/C# lever.

Regular servicing and using the right viscosity oils in the right quantities (neither allowing things to run dry nor turning the entire thing into an oil slick of Amoco Cadiz proportions) and locations as well as durable silencing materials will keep things running nice and quiet.

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

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