 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Jean
Date: 2002-09-17 23:09
I have to admit if a young student told me this I would be hard-pressed to believe it. Our new puppy chewed on my mouthpiece putting little basset hound tooth marks all over the top of the mouthpiece. It plays fine but feels "funky"...his teeth don't line up with mine. This is a very young dog so the marks are small but noticeable. Aside from putting a tooth patch on it can this be buffed out?
I guess this is what I get for naming the dog Artie....you should hear him on Stardust. 
Thanks in advance for the advice. And no, don't anyone suggest I get rid of the dog.
Jean
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Author: William
Date: 2002-09-17 23:45
Advise teaching your basset beast the double lip embouchure--but that might be going out on a leash.
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Author: Terry Horlick
Date: 2002-09-18 03:23
Yes you can buff it out. You will be removing material so the piece will get thinner and this may affect the sound. Your goal will be to make it smooth... at least acceptably smooth. Stay away from the tip, rails and inside of the mouthpiece. Do not polish anywhere the reed touches.
You can use a fine abrasive and then work down to finer and finer. Then go to a buffing wheel with polishing compound. Work down to flour of pumice to finish off... that should do it. As a dentist this kind of thing is second nature. Your dentist has the supplies and lathe to do this, you can also get what you need at a jewelry supply. Don't press hard or go too fast or you will melt the surface and ruin the piece.
In the end you will have a smooth but slightly concave beak, you'll probably want the pad to make up for the thickness you have abraded.
Please consider that you have a reasonable chance of destroying the mouthpiece. I would suggest you take a junker mouthpiece to practice on. You might want to feed that one to the dog too so it is a realistic test!
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Author: ron b
Date: 2002-09-18 05:18
I just finished repadding an alto sax, today. You know the brand; friend buys it cheap and asked if I could 'do him a favor', favor turns into Major favor:| That's right it's a MajorFavor saxophone. Well the mouthpiece had pretty good sized teeth marks that were, in fact, not pretty - just good sized. So, as long as I was into this, much further than I really wanted to be, I decided to get rid of the marks. So, going the extra mile, I used 400 grit wet-or-dry abrasive paper (dry) to rub the marks out. Softly, with a small circular motion and from side to side, back and forth, it took about twenty minutes for the marks to disappear. I did not touch anything but the top of the beak, from the tip to (and including) the upward slant. Terry, if you could see this, you might be proud of me:) The mouthpiece now has a nice contrast, clean looking satin on shiny black. Although I have the means to, I found no need to buff it. One could do the whole mouthpiece like that if time permitted but, personally, I like the way it turned out - all ready now for my friend to put his own marks on it :]
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Author: Terry Horlick
Date: 2002-09-18 05:36
Bravo, Ron... prooves there's always more than one way. A satin finish will feel just fine.
Terry
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Author: Tammy Tudor
Date: 2002-09-18 13:36
I can sympathize. Mine was a pointer puppy. Dad got out his grinder and did his whole "I can buff this out." macho act and within minutes melted the mouthpiece into a very pretty and totally useless fluted piece of plastic. We replaced the mouthpiece and still have the receipt 20 plus years later as a reminder to my Dad that contrary to Tim 'the toolman" Taylor that more power is NOT always good. Go light and easy and you should be okay. I learned to put the puppy outside or in another room until my practice was over and my instrument was put away. Good luck.
Tammy
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Author: JMcAulay
Date: 2002-09-18 14:55
This all sounds good. I wonder about using aircraft windshield refinishing cloth or paper, which has various grits all the way down to practically not there. I've used this stuff to polish out a badly gouged LaserDisc, and it worked fine. It could likely put a mirror finish on a mouthpiece. If my stuff can be found, think I'll give that a try.
Regards,
John
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Author: David Spiegelthal
Date: 2002-09-18 15:04
Try 3M "Wet-or-Dry" silicon carbide sandpaper, used wet, starting with grit #220 and working down to #600 (or better yet #1000 or #2000), followed by a quick rub with automotive rubbing (red) or polishing (white) compound using a clean soft cotton towel to apply, followed by a thorough polishing using a clean, dry cotton towel alone. Original shine will return, or double your money back!
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Author: Bob
Date: 2002-09-18 15:05
Reason number 3 to put your horn back in its case when you're not using it...
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Author: Metalclarinetgigman
Date: 2002-09-18 15:36
Mine was not a mouthpice, it was a Kenny Davern LP I had loaned to a lady friend, she returned looking like a well used and battered frizby, her lovely dog had had a go at it while it was still in the sleeve, of course it was unplayable, she apologized and never offered to pay for it, in money anyway.
I was once at a friends house and sat on a arm chair and broke his favourite 78rpm record, now that shows how aged I am.
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Author: Mark S.
Date: 2002-09-18 15:43
Of course, everyone missed the obvious recommendation -- just use it on basset horn.
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Author: William
Date: 2002-09-18 16:23
I thought the mpc was on the clarinet and the dog was just using ""too much bite.""
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Author: Mark Charette
Date: 2002-09-18 16:56
Bob wrote:
>
> Reason number 3 to put your horn back in its case when
> you're not using it...
Reason #1 not to have a puppy.
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Author: Matt Locker
Date: 2002-09-18 17:10
Why couldn't the teeth marks be filled with epoxy or some other type resin/filler and then buff back down to the original profile?
Matt
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Author: ron b
Date: 2002-09-18 18:36
They could be, Matt; it just takes lots more time/patience. Ferree's sells Jet Magic (black epoxy) for that purpose. You apply it in (thin?) layers, letting it dry between each one, until you build it up to where you want - then, using whatever method works best for you: sand, scrape, file, buff, you blend it in with the surrounding area. It works for mouthpieces, tenons, toneholes, etc.
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Author: Matt Locker
Date: 2002-09-18 19:46
Ron:
If a person is afraid that polishing the mpc down WITHOUT filling will affect the sound due to the resulting thinner walls - I would certainly be - then that time/patience would be well spent.
MOO,
Matt
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Author: David Spiegelthal
Date: 2002-09-18 20:31
Matt,
Your fear about changing the sound by very slightly thinning the walls from polishing is completely groundless, scientifically speaking. No doubt someone out there has "golden ears" and will claim to be able to hear a difference, to which I would reply "balderdash!".
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Author: Malaya
Date: 2002-09-18 21:52
wouldn't it be a whole lot easier to just replace the mouthpiece alltogether? unless it's something terribly expensive, then i'd see why one wouldn't...
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Author: Jean
Date: 2002-09-19 02:45
It is a Richard Hawkins mouthpiece. This is not a "cheapo" mouthpiece. I suppose I could pay to have him work on it. However, I am almost too embarassed to tell him what happened. As to why the accident happened let me just say this....there is never a dull moment when you have a three year old son and a two month old puppy in the same house.
Thanks all for your suggestions. And oh so witty comments.
Jean
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Author: Tony Pay
Date: 2002-09-19 12:53
Before you start sanding, read:
http://www.woodwind.org/Databases/Logs/1999/01/000847.txt
Tony
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Author: Tony Pay
Date: 2002-09-19 12:59
And David Niethamer's suggestion too:
http://www.woodwind.org/Databases/Logs/1999/01/001484.txt
Tony
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Author: William
Date: 2002-09-19 14:35
Why not get LeBlanc to make your doggie a K9 mouthpiece??? (they already market K10s)
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Author: Carol Dutcher
Date: 2002-09-19 18:06
Jean, you are NOT alone. My German Shepherd pup ate half a mouthpiece that I had paid quite a bit for. I was always too embarrassed to tell anybody what happened. I learned very quickly to put my horn away and any accessories too! I don't know how you would fix it though.
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Author: Tony Pay
Date: 2002-09-20 00:04
I just wanted to try to put the two URLs I gave in my reply so that they act as direct links. My browser doesn't seem to want to do that automagically, so I'll do it by hand.
If it doesn't work I'll drop the equivalent text in.
(Seriously, it might save your mouthpiece.)
The URLs are:
<a href="http://www.woodwind.org/Databases/Logs/1999/01/000847.txt">http://www.woodwind.org/Databases/Logs/1999/01/000847.txt</a>
<a href="http://www.woodwind.org/Databases/Logs/1999/01/001484.txt">http://www.woodwind.org/Databases/Logs/1999/01/001484.txt</a>
Tony
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