 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: sarah
Date: 2001-12-03 00:19
I was wondering if anyone has any information on different materials used for the mechanism of clarinets and if it has any effect at all.
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Author: Arnold the basset hornist
Date: 2001-12-03 07:18
Hello,
generally, posts and the key itselff are made of nickel silver (Cu + Zn + Ni) - only the surface is platet with silver (Ag), nickel (Ni) or perhaps gold (Au).
The axis mostly stainless steel.
The spings (both needle and flat) steel, too.
A historical key material: brass material (Cu + Zn).
I think, beside the phisical characteristics (rigidity, abraison) most important is, how you can work with this material while manufacturing a clarinet (casting, soldering, forgeability, cutting), which differs from one specific alloy to another, too.
I home, this helps a little,
Arnold (the basset hornist)
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Author: ron b
Date: 2001-12-04 08:45
Some instruments (among them, Conn) during the WWll era had pot metal keys. Pot metal is porous and quite brittle and cannot be soldered. A broken key would have to be replaced since repair is, to the best of my knowledge, impossible - or at least impractical. Some of the instruments still exist :
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Author: Gordon (NZ)
Date: 2001-12-04 10:46
In my experience the most common instrument using this foul metal was Boosey & Hawkes Regents. They actually played very well, but after a key was bent 2 oor 3 times it normally broke. Often they had to be bent to align key cups adequately with tone holes for reliability of seating.
A/D bridge keys were the most often broken and replacements became unavailable. I solved this problem locally by getting a mould made to get replacement keys cast in strerling silver. These worked out at about half the cost of the B&H replacements, and would last forever!
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Author: Mark Pinner
Date: 2001-12-04 12:40
Pot metal definitely sucks!
Better quality instruments generally have German Silver keys as mentioned above or solid sterling silver. Either are good providing the alloy is of good quality and is "hard". The plating may be cosmetic or actually help in keeping the keys hard. Quite often on older clarinets with German silver keys you find that they had been plated over the solid key metal such as better quality Boosey's prior to WWII and Selmer Paris N series and earlier.
The Leblanc keywork currently used on their better models is amde of solid sterling silver alloy which is copper plated and then finished with bright silver. Cheaper horns have brass keys plated with either sterling or German silver, sometimes over copper. Some flutes I work on have solid silver bodies and headjoints but the keywork is plated brass such as the Mateki and Muramatsu intermediate, but still costly models, which really sucks because the posts are silver and the parts wear at vastly different rates.
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Author: JMcAulay
Date: 2001-12-04 20:30
Mark, thanks for the input on the Leblanc instruments. I've been wondering about a certain Noblet with keys that appear to be silver-on-silver with a copper interface. Having been unaware that this construction might actually be used by Leblanc, I wondered if my eyes were deceriving me and the undermetal might be nickel silver.
I also have an Albert-system instrument which seems to me uncommon: it has a bell marked "Beaufort Frank Holton & Co." and no other markings at all, other than "B-flat LP" on the right joint. The right joint has brass keywork (or some alloy very similar in appearance to brass), but the left joint keywork appears to be nickel silver. Posts seem to be nickel silver throughout.
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Author: willie
Date: 2001-12-05 01:51
That pot metal is called Zamack ( also written as Zamak) and should be outlawed as it was used mainly during WW2 to save the good metals for war production. I've been told that some of the Chineese/Indian inports are still using this stuff.
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Author: Gordon (NZ)
Date: 2001-12-05 12:29
I can see little point in using silver as a base metal and then using a copper interface in the plating. As far as I can see the ONLY point in using solid silver is so that the keys retain appearance when worn. On the contrary, with an interface the appearance is particularly bad.
This "Zamack" is used for making keys for the Turkish "G-clarinets." And the keys NEED to be bent to get alignment correct. Warning - do not work on them!
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Author: JMcAulay
Date: 2001-12-06 00:15
Gordon (NZ), I agree with you on the Ag-Cu-Ag 100%. The only reason I noticed strangeness about this instrument was the considerable surface wear on the throat A-flat key, evidenced by a faint odd-shaped ring of copper with silver inside and outside it. When I first looked at it, I could not (and still can't) tell the difference between the surface appearance inside and outside that coppery ring, but I could not believe anyone would do anything so seemingly weird. So, I figured the base material had to be nickel silver, but it really didn't look like it. Also, even more odd, the top surfaces (roof-peak-shaped) on the long left little finger E and F# keys are bright coppery color over much of their length, but silver in appearance everywhere else. How those became worn is a mystery to me, unless the "protective" material inside the case did it.
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Author: Gordon (NZ)
Date: 2001-12-06 09:29
It is a mystery to me why some manufacturers use this copper interface. Perhaps it is cost cutting. It certainly seems common for the copper to quickly become exposed.
Some web grazing found the following two sites which seem to indicate that silver over copper is a bad idea functionally.
http://www.electroplating.com/ag.html
http://www.corrosion-doctors.org/MatSelect/corrsilver.htm
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