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Re: Old Boosey & Hawke

Author: jasperbay
Date: 2010-11-27 04:30

I own a dozen or so B&H Edgwares,2-20's, and an 8-10. All have nickle plated white brass keys, NOT POT METAL ! I understand a few were made with zinc or some such alloy during WW2 but have never seen one, and don't really lose any sleep wondering if I'll get stuck with one, as they're fairly rare.

Enjoy your Edgware, its got good keywork, not pot metal, and the sound quality from the slightly larger than contemporary bore gives a nice, mellow, woody tone that most listeners appreciate. They do seem to like a B-45 type mouthpiece.

For those BB posters (I won't name names, you know who you are [grin]

)who feel the keys are brass, well you're sort of correct: Brass comes in different colors (white, ie 'nickle silver', yellow, and red) and forms; sheet and cast. Sheet, or rolled, nickle-silver looks almost identical to sterling silver, while 'cast' nickle-silver usually has a yellowish tone that could be easily confused with common 'yellow' brass. In fact, casting nickle-silver left too long in the pot may actually burn off enough of the zinc (if memory serves) that helps make it "white brass" that it becomes nearly yellow brass.

With the older clarinets having 'unplated' german silver keywork, there's a lot of variation in the nickle-silver alloys used. Some look nearly like sterling silver, and don't seem to tarnish much, while others seem to tarnish fairly quickly, turning a dull yellow. I'm not enough of a metalurgist to know what exactly makes the difference . Don't want to confuse anybody, but "german silver" ie nickle-silver , contains NO silver. Its probably more accurate to consider it "white brass".

Clark G. Sherwood

Post Edited (2010-11-27 04:33)

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