Author: Eddie Ashton
Date: 2002-06-03 13:02
Whilst this epistle was originally in response to an earlier query from Mr. Simpson about breaking in a new bass clarinet, I thought it might possibly be of wide enough interest to be worth a new posting. Apologies to those who don’t think so and are fed up with this oft discussed subject!
My advice would be the same as for any wooden instrument. The greatest threat to the wood comes from rapid temperature and/or moisture changes, particularly where these affect some parts of the body and not others.
There's little that can be done to protect against ambient temperature changes other than to keep the instrument in its own micro-environment ( its case) when moving from, say, indoors to outdoors etc. The potentially hazardous difference in temp. caused by blowing warm air into the instrument is pretty well unavoidable unless you never play it, which is rather self-defeating!
It is however quite easy to protect against moisture changes and as experience suggests this to be the cause of the majority of cracks, it's worthwhile addressing this problem.
99% of cracks emanate from places where water is allowed to come into contact with end grain. These are, the tenon ends of each joint, the inside mating surfaces of each socket, the top and bottom of each tone-hole and the joint between any metal fittings and the wood i.e. metal tenon end-sheaths or rings and, most importantly, where speaker tube and thumb-hole bushes protrude into the bore. It isn't coincidence that all the most common places that you've ever heard of a clarinet cracking are mentioned in the last sentence!
What to do about it? Well everybody has there own ideas on this one. This is only mine to add to the list.
For me, the various vegetable oils are o.k. but not too long-lasting (when you pull through, you wipe them off), and are messy. They can't be used in tone holes as the pads will stick and contact with the keywork must be avoided for the same reason.
Silicone liquid on the other hand is light and clean. It creates a microscopic water barrier, which is long lasting and quite hard to remove without the use of solvents and
if it gets on keywork or pads, it won’t stick (quite the opposite in fact).
Repeat once every 6months.
One last point relating to this topic – When using an absorbent pull-through, don’t pull through too quickly. Give the moisture time to absorb into the material of the cleaner, otherwise it gets pushed into the tone-holes as it passes them and they gradually fill with dirty water – yuk!
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The Clarinet BBoard
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