 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: harim0suprem0
Date: 2015-06-02 03:22
Hi everyone,
I'm currently looking into restoring my old Vandoren 5RV lyre clarinet mouthpiece that I used to play on when I was a beginner/intermediate student on the clarinet 5 years ago. It wasn't looked after very well back then, and as a result there are tiny dents on the tip rail and what appears to be many light scratches on the inside of the mouthpiece starting from the throat going all the way up to the tip rail. I'm completely new to this, so I have no idea where to start. Should I use a file or sanding stick to try and remove the scratches inside the throat and baffle? And to reface the tip rail to remove the dents, I just slide the end of the mouthpiece 2 or 3 times over a wet 300 grit sandpaper on a sheet of glass, right?
Any suggestions/advice will be greatly appreciated,
Harim
NZ
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2015-06-02 03:40
Personally, since the downside of doing harm to the interior is MUCH greater than the upside (um....what IS the upside?), I wouldn't touch the interior.
Similarly, if the imperfections of the tip rail are not causing a problem, I would avoid the tinkering. The ONLY thing that you can do is to (ever so slightly I grant you) open up the tip. If you are getting uncontrolled squeaks from it, even a seasoned mouthpiece repair person would only do minor adjustments before telling you that the balance of making improvements vs. making it too different tips toward the latter.
If you're really set on the tip rail reform, try swirling it a few times on glass first. This can smooth out imperfections without changing the dimensions very much.
..................Paul Aviles
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Author: kdk
Date: 2015-06-02 03:48
It's a little more complicated than just swiping the mouthpiece over the sandpaper two or three times. If you're interested in a learning experience and not too worried about the result, find a few articles on the web about refacing mouthpieces and have at it. If your goal is to have a good, very playable 5RV at the end of the process (maybe better than it was when you bought it), contact a professional mouthpiece craftsman - some advertise here in the Mouthpieces and Barrels ad section, but there are others - and have him or her clean up the rails and restore the mouthpiece's original specs.
Karl
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Author: harim0suprem0
Date: 2015-06-02 06:28
I have just been testing the mouthpiece piece out. The sound is really buzzy and edgy... I think I'm gonna have a go at Paul's suggestion, as there aren't any mouthpiece craftsman here in NZ that I can send my mouthpiece too.
Harim
NZ
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Author: JHowell
Date: 2015-06-02 07:27
Dents can often be taken out by brushing over a lighter flame, or by touching briefly against a low-wattage incandescent bulb. The rubber has memory, and heat relaxes the distortion back to the original shape.
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Author: tylerleecutts
Date: 2015-06-02 08:00
It would be cheaper to buy a new 5RV for 100 or less USD then to send to a refacer for restoration.
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Author: Wes
Date: 2015-06-02 10:25
Yes, it would be best to buy a new mouthpiece as anything you do to the mouthpiece would probably make it worse. It takes many years to learn how to fix mouthpieces and the techniques for fixing them are often closely held.
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2015-06-02 14:47
MY OPINION is that we DO NOT want to be telling students to put their mouthpieces over an open flame (for any period of time - swipe or not).
Rubber's original state was sap.
And that's just what some of us will get trying that out.
I've never heard of this method. But just so I don't sound like a grumpy old man, what would be the difference between the last swipe of the craftsman refining this mouthpiece before it got put in the box and a dent after the box was first opened? How would the ebonite know the difference over a flame?
.............Paul Aviles
Post Edited (2015-06-02 20:49)
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Author: TomS
Date: 2015-06-02 20:28
I sent two 5RV-lyres to David McClune and they came back very different, but improved, IMHO. Free blowing and fast, and perhaps more mellow, too. Dr. McClune has a definite knack with MPs.
Tom
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Author: JHowell
Date: 2015-06-03 02:23
You should try it, Paul. It's a fairly well-known method of dealing with the occasional tooth ding. It requires no refacing, which poses a much greater risk to the mouthpiece's performance, and costs nothing. The dent just pops out.
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Author: Steven Ocone
Date: 2015-06-03 03:15
I (very carefully) use a flame or hot air to remove dents. I usually use a butane torch with a catalytic convertor that produces a stream of hot air. This also works on tone holes of plastic clarinets. I assume no responsibility if you melt a mouthpiece or clarinet!
Steve Ocone
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2015-06-03 03:33
Gosh I don't know about that guys. But for those reading, you don't actually want someone without guidance (beyond what has already been said) to try this, do you?
............Paul Aviles
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Author: JHowell
Date: 2015-06-03 07:10
Why not? The presence of an open flame is the only actual danger, so anybody who can be trusted to light a candle can relax a tooth ding, and if an open flame can't be risked, there's always a low-wattage light bulb. Rubber will take a lot of heat without burning. I make pipes as a hobby, and heat the stems, which are made of the same rubber, with a heat gun until they are soft enough to bend. If you take a pipe with a bent stem and heat the stem, it will spring back straight. Some guys use an alcohol lamp for bending stems, and either way the process uses a LOT more heat for a lot more time than it takes to fix a tooth ding. You CAN scorch hard rubber, but you have to let it sit in the flame for a moment for that to happen; just keep it moving. The one thing you don't want to do is try it on a plastic mouthpiece. But I certainly wouldn't face out dings unless heat fails.
I think I understand your concern, and I guess it is warranted to the extent that you never know what sort of disaster might result from clueless implementation or a warped understanding of the instructions, so if there is any doubt, have an adult do it. I'm a little surprised that any clarinetist over voting age hasn't done this trick before, or at least seen it done.
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2015-06-03 15:39
I'm 53 years old and have sat down with more than my fair share of mouthpiece makers and refinishers. Perhaps they did that in the back room when the store was closed, but this IS the first time I've heard this.
I may, in a weak moment, take a battered up B45 and see what happens.
Maybe.
.............Paul Aviles
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Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2015-06-03 15:58
I've never heard of restoring a mouthpiece ding with fire. I've sat with many mouthpiece makers and refacers and never seen an open flame or other heat source. It seems to me that partially melting the rubber in the hope that it will magically restore itself is just wishful thinking.
I've ruined any number of mouthpieces trying to improve or rescue them. My advice to Harim is to take the mouthpiece to someone who knows what he/she' doing. Trying to fix it yourself is like lighting a $100 bill to heat a $100 mouthpiece. Just get a new one.
Ken Shaw
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Author: kdk
Date: 2015-06-03 16:54
I'll join this discussion as another who has never seen this done. For those who have experience with it, how likely is a novice at this heat technique to ruin rather than fix the mouthpiece? Does it take practice in the way refacing does to be confident of getting a good result? In your experience does the rubber stop at filling in the ding, or do you still have to tweak the rail a little with fine abrasive to get it completely flat again?
Karl
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Author: Dibbs
Date: 2015-06-03 17:20
Doesn't heating ebonite make it go green? I seem to recall washing one in hot water once and having it go green.
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Author: JHowell
Date: 2015-06-03 19:01
No, you don't "partially melt" the rubber. Rubber has a memory, even hard rubber. Hard rubber is springy like a rubber band except that it has been vulcanized (heat and sulfur) to the point that it is rigid enough to hold its shape. If rubber is chipped, so that material is separated and removed, this method does not apply. If rubber is dented, so that the material flows to create a dent but all of the material remains present, the local application of heat will relax the rigidity enough to for the rubber to return to its original shape, and no further. This is not wishful thinking, this is how rubber behaves. It works best when the ding is fresh, but will work to some extent on old dings too.
Plastic is different, it DOES have to be partially melted, and the window between being soft enough to move and being hot enough to fail is very narrow. Not recommended. Also not recommended to subject rubber mouthpieces to any kind of general elevated temperature for any length of time, like leaving them in a hot car or soaking them in hot water. Rubber mouthpieces warp enough just on their own even when you're careful. What I'm talking about is a very quick, very local application of heat for a specific purpose. It does not turn the rubber green. That would be the general, lengthy application of heat.
Does it take practice? No. It seems that the majority of players have no real concept of hard rubber's material properties envelope, and the fear of damaging the mouthpiece is likely to provide all the caution that is needed. If you're fearful, don't try it. And feel free to advise against it based on the fact that you've never heard of it or tried it. Or, maybe, dig out an old, battered, valueless (but hard rubber) mouthpiece and swipe a lighter/candle flame over a ding, or touch it briefly to a light bulb, and see what happens.
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Author: kdk
Date: 2015-06-03 21:00
JHowell wrote:
> If rubber
> is chipped, so that material is separated and removed, this
> method does not apply. If rubber is dented, so that the
> material flows to create a dent but all of the material remains
> present, the local application of heat will relax the rigidity
> enough to for the rubber to return to its original shape, and
> no further.
Thanks, Jack. Both for the general information and for this important distinction - the technique is only useful if the rubber is materially intact and only displaced (dented), but not if there's material actually missing. So chips and dings must be treated differently and it makes a difference which you're dealing with when a rail is damaged.
Karl
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