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Re: Pad savers

Author: Lelia Loban ★2017
Date: 2012-01-05 12:33

For clarinets, I use a silk pull-through swab (Ann Hodges). I hang the swab from my music stand so the swab will dry outside the case, to leave the air in the case as dry as possible to circulate through the clarinet bore. No matter how well we swab, a wind instrument will always remain somewhat damp inside and a pad-saver will trap that dampness in there.

One of the worst wooden clarinets I ever saw at a flea market had a pad saver in each key section. The previous owner had put that clarinet away with damp pad savers in it. The case was full of dried black mold and it stank.

Pulling a pad saver out wasn't easy, because it had stuck to the bore as it became verminous and then gradually dried. When I eased one pad-saver halfway out, it was black with long-dried mold and it shed fibers all over the place as I pulled. Even though the inside of the clarinet had dried out, too (probably over a period of months or years when the instrument sat unused), when I began pulling the pad saver out, the stench wafting from inside the clarinet would have made a goat gag. Most of the pads had fallen out of the pad cups and the other pads were rotted. There were dead insects in the case, too. I don't know whether the wood had rotted inside the bore or not, because I never got past that one swab half-out before I decided life's too short to deal with that much of a mess. I pushed the swab back in and went off to wash my hands!

Lelia
http://www.scoreexchange.com/profiles/Lelia_Loban
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Post Edited (2012-01-05 12:35)

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