Author: bwilber
Date: 2006-11-18 12:42
I love to buy old clarinets off of Ebay and so I have many old mouthpieces laying around collecting dust. I tend to stick to just a few that work well for me when I pick up a clarinet to play on. A few weeks ago I had a crystal mouthpiece that didn't work good and so I experimented with a large emery board and got it to working pretty decently. Since I have taken some of those old mouthpieces out just to see what I could do with them to get them to work. If the tip isn't too badly damaged, it is fun to see what can be done with them and so far I have gotten them all to play. Last night I took one that looked pretty terrible and it didn't work at all. I couldn't get a sound out of it. This is what I did. If you try this, don't do it on expensive mouthpieces. Experiment on your throwaways.
The emory boards that I use are about 6-1/2 inches long and 3/4" wide. They have a rougher side and a smoother side.
Try playing the mouthpiece with your favorite reed. How does it play? Does it sound airy? Try gently sanding the table with the smoother side of the emory board. Does it sand all the way across or does it only sand on the edges? If it only sands on the edges, that means the table isn't flat. The table does have to be flat. Sand the table flat.
Do you not get any sound out of it at all? That means that the tip doesn't have enough of a curve. Sand the tip until you get a curve. The tip can't be flat. You need to actually sand over the edge. If the tip is perfectly flat, the reed clogs. Sand a little bit, then try playing it. If you are getting improvement, keep going until you get a good response. If it seems to want to squawk, but it's getting there, just keep doing the same thing. Eventually it will open up and stop squawking.
I have seen that you need to sand your mouthpiece on a flat surface, but I have found that the best way is to hold the mouthpiece in my hands and sand. I sand across and towards the tip. As I am working on the tip, I lightly sand the entire mouthpiece so that it's flat all the way from the base to the tip. When I got the mouthpiece to playing good, I take a small flat board with very fine wet and sand paper wrapped around it and with water, lightly sand the surface until it is smooth.
Like I said before, only experiement with your throwaways!!! Any thoughts from you expert refacers
Bonnie Wilber
|
|
The Clarinet BBoard
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
