 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: caledonius
Date: 2008-05-30 05:23
I have what may be more of an existential than a practical question about the soon-to-be-decided fate of my high school Yamaha clarinet. I have many fond memories of my YCL-34, my first wooden horn that I (read:my parents) purchased new in 1991. It subsequently passed to my younger brother, also a clarinetist, as I moved on to a Buffet R13 in 1996.
My brother was reasonably careful and accomplished with it, but he quit playing after college, and it has sat untouched since 2003. He graciously agreed to give it back to me as a backup horn while I get my R13 an overdue overhaul, and it arrived by UPS ground today.
It's a total wreck...all of the skin pads in the upper joint are in various degrees of deterioration (to the point that the case is littered with pulverized pad remains). The pivot screws are all corroded; some look badly stripped. Worst of all, the nickel plating has worn off down to a coppery-looking interior on the register key, A, G#, C#, Eb, left hand B/E keys and even along a significant portion of the bell ring. The state of the remaining keywork is hideous: whitish discoloration with little bits of green coppery corrosion poking through on all the tone hole rings, rods, and even the barrel and middle joint rings.
Obviously, the clarinet is totally unplayable in this condition and will need to be wholly repadded with some work to the action to set it aright from a playing standpoint. Cosmetically, however, it will remain unacceptable to onlookers, and I worry that further deterioration of the nickel-plate-less keys will threaten the clarinet's playing integrity further if all I attend to are its padding issues.
My queston is this: is a YCL-34 worth the expense of restoring it to its original condition? My assumptions have been thus far that a re-pad would be ~$100-150, but a major overhaul with attention to buffing +/- replating the keys could run me more than the value of the clarinet. My inclination is to let it die based on these assumptions, as I don't attach much sentimental value to this instrument. On the other hand, I do have fond memories of how this thing played, albeit in times when I was a far less discerning player.
If your relative shipped you this thing, what would you advise?
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Author: Chris P
Date: 2008-05-30 09:42
If you plan to keep it for yourself and use it as a back-up (and like the way it plays), then perhaps you could justify spending the money on having it completely rebuilt, even though it will probably cost nearly as much to buy a new one. But how does (or did) it play compared to a new one? As you already have this clarinet in it's current state, would it make sense to buy a new one, or have your existing one rebuilt for a similar cost?
There are some instruments that are completely uneconomical to do any degree of work on (the usual suspects can be seen on eBay), though Yamaha clarinets are built extremely well and can go on for years (just as any well built and well maintained clarinet can), and you may find you have a much better made one than the ones being made now.
If you do choose to have it fully reconditioned, you could go for silver plated keywork - but find a company that has a good track record of doing this kind of work as it's extensive in that all the parts have to be removed, cleaned up, plated and then refitted (and then the pads and corks are fitted) so it'll be like having a new instrument when it's all done, or maybe even better than new.
Former oboe finisher
Howarth of London
1998 - 2010
The opinions I express are my own.
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Author: Matt Locker
Date: 2008-05-30 13:54
If you are mechanically inclined at all, you can use it to learn how to do your own pad work & restoration. You can polish the keys yourself with the proper compound.
Please don't turn it into a lamp. I'll galdly take it off your hands if that's what you are planning.
MOO,
Matt
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Author: Chris P
Date: 2008-05-30 14:30
There are loads of clarinets destined for use as lamps, the Yamaha 34 isn't one of these.
As the nickel plating is thin, you could have a go at tidying up the pitted and worn areas of keywork in preparation for plating (using emery paper of varying grades and finally polishing on a buffing machine) - just to get an idea of how labour intensive such work can be.
Aim to get the finish as smooth and as even as possible without losing any definition in the keywork (ie. not rounding off bevels or square edges). The socket rings will all come off, but the large bell ring will have to stay in place.
When taking the pillars out, wire them up on a length of soft brass or copper wire (looped around the pillar threads or through the base plates on the anchored pillars, making sure they can move or rotate slightly but won't drop out if shaken rigorously) and keep a note of where each one goes (and don't lose this list or diagram!). Wire other small metal parts such as the thumb rest, trill guide, speaker and thumb bushes, etc. with the pillars, but keep the upper and ower joint pillars and parts on seperate wires.
Keep all screws in an order so you know where they're meant to go - either on a board with holes drilled into it, or stuck in order on a piece of tape. Wood screws, flat spring screws and point screws can be mixed up. Springs (both needle and flat) can be stuck in a wine cork in their relative positions on the joints, or stuck into a piece of polystyrene and labelled.
Unless you have the correct size taps (for flat spring screw, key barrel screw, adjusting screw and point screw threads) and the correct size reamers for the key barrels, as well as key barrel fraises (to fit the key barrels between pillars) and point screw countersinks, then you shouldn't have a problem refitting the keys.
Once all the pillars are off the joints, you can clean and polish up the wood (and the bell ring) - taking care not to chip any toneholes in the process. And once the joints are all cleaned up, polished and the bore has been oiled, you can glue on new tenon corks if you like. But don't fit them to the sockets until you have the socket rings on otherwise you can split the sockets.
Former oboe finisher
Howarth of London
1998 - 2010
The opinions I express are my own.
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Author: caledonius
Date: 2008-05-30 19:00
Many thanks for the advice thus far. In answer to some of the issues raised above:
Whatever one's opinion of Yamaha's entry-level wooden clarinets is, I think that making a lamp out of this one is out of the question for two reasons.
1. My recollections of this horn are fond ones. From what I remember it was a very pleasant clarinet to play or listen to.
2. It's too ugly to make into a lamp in its present condition.
I could easily afford to put as much as $700 or so into restoring this thing without feeling foolish. Problem is, who has the patience to do this sort of work well on a non-pro horn? Any recommendations? Although I appreciate Chris P's suggestions re doing a lot of the prep work myself, I have a day job as a physician, and I just don't have the time for such an exacting DIY sideline in key restoration.
My local band instrument dealer's repair tech more or less laughed at me when I suggested that I wanted to have this sort of work done, and they apparently don't traffic in re-plating. Poking around online, I see estimates ranging from $375 to $760 for "complete restoration + replating" from various woodwind repair shops. The services that this includes appear to include most of what this instrument would need.
Does that strike anyone as a reasonable starting range?
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Author: NorbertTheParrot
Date: 2008-05-30 19:22
If it has been neglected and/or abused to the extent your description indicates, what condition is the wood in?
No point spending all that money on the keywork if the wood is damaged.
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Author: caledonius
Date: 2008-05-30 20:01
The wood is in great shape, as are the tone holes. In chastising my brother about the horn, he reminded me that the nickel plating was already flaking off when he got the clarinet in its fifth year of life. Since my R13 is also nickel plated and has pristine keywork after 12 years of regular use, something tells me that Yamaha's plating wasn't quite up to snuff in the early 1990s.
But as for the wood, it looks fine. No chips, cracks, or loose rings.
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Author: Chris P
Date: 2008-05-30 20:11
Yamaha's plating is thin in comparison to several other makes, both in terms of nickel and silver plating.
Nickel plating is usually applied as an undercoat for silver to get plated onto as it's very smooth and gives a good finish for the silver to adhere to, so it can be applied at a thickness of less than 5 microns which makes it wear out quickly, even though it's a very hard metal.
Silver is usually applied between 12 to 25+ microns (over the nickel plate) - the reason being that it's one micron per year of the lifetime of the instrument (so I was told). But Yamaha apply silver somewhere between 8 and 12 microns.
So instruments with nickel plated keys are less expensive than those with silver plate due to there being one less process during plating (and consequently the finishing time on the instrument is also slightly reduced), thus the cost is lower.
Former oboe finisher
Howarth of London
1998 - 2010
The opinions I express are my own.
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Author: Fred
Date: 2008-05-31 02:03
It sounds like there is some sentimental value involved here, and that's perfectly legitimate. It sounds like you would have $400-500 in the 34 before you're done, so you've got a brain battle to fight. Left side says I can buy a way better clarinet for $400-500 than a 34; Right side says the 34 is special to me and I'd rather have my old friend fixed even if it's not as good a clarinet.
Personally, I'm way too left-brained to consider rebuilding a 34 . . . but I did rebuild/replate my '66 R13 that my parents bought me new and I will keep it forever!!
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Author: Chris P
Date: 2008-05-31 06:05
I dread to think how much I would have forked out to get my old Selmers all rebuilt if I paid someone to do the work, and it'll certainly be much more than the initial cost of the clarinets in question.
But I can justify it - I've got them all insured for the current market value, not that they will be easy to replace as Selmer don't make them like they used to.
Former oboe finisher
Howarth of London
1998 - 2010
The opinions I express are my own.
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