Author: clarnibass
Date: 2018-02-21 10:01
I have a bunch of torches (including the model Matt74 just mentioned), both "mini" and with tanks, the pad cup heater, a soldering gun with tips cut to work like a pad cup heater, a hot air gun and an alcohol lamp.
For clarinet pads 99% of the time I use the alcohol lamp to melt glue in the cup and heat it, then most of the time I use the pad cup heater to heat the key cup while the key is mounted if necessary.
I never use the cut tip soldering gun for pads. I really only use it to heat stuck hinges. You can shape the tips to be much farther away than the pad cup heater so can reach both ends of a rod screw sometimes (e.g. on a lacquered sax key). In reality I don't use it often even for that.
I pretty much never use any of the mini torches for clarinet pads. I occasionally use the alcohol lamp only, or the hot air torch with some synthetic pads that are more sensitive to heat. It is still entirely possible to use a flame with these pads, it's less hassle to not worry about this issue.
I use the mini torch mainly for sax keys, or for soldering (most soft soldering, or silver soldering tiny parts).
Shmuelyosef, what temperature do you use with the hot air gun? I use it on a very low temp for this even though it takes a bit longer, because the reason I even use it is for the more heat sensitive pads. I haven't had it damage any plastic part of a clarinet yet.
Post Edited (2018-02-21 10:03)
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The Clarinet BBoard
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