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Re: Strange, Uneven seating of pad

Author: Chris P
Date: 2020-07-01 09:41

Uneven toneholes can also be a result of the wood moving or they were formed uneven if the cutter was blunt, out of balance or the collet holding the cutter was worn. I've seen more toneholes that were dipped at 2 o'clock and 8 o'clock and they were dealt with by levelling them.

Skin pads are often wonky and take some doing to flatten, but leather pads are more pliable and can be bent into shape and then ironed flat before installing them. Cork pads are the least forgiving and should never be installed on anything other than perfectly flat and blemish-free toneholes.

With older clarinets where the C#/G# tonehole is a plain one like LH3 without a countersunk bedplace, I cut a bedplace onto it so I can install a cork pad there. It only needs to be countersunk until you see a perfectly flat tonehole crown formed (9 o'clock and 3 o'clock being the lowest points on a plain tonehole and cut down to that depth), but no deeper than it needs to be as retaining the maximum height of the C#/G# tonehole is more critical on some clarinets than others.

That's why you usually see German and Oehler system clarinets with a bushed C#/G# tonehole to increase its height - also seen on some A clarinets. If you do choose to bush the tonehole, you'd have to use a much thinner pad or adjust the angle of the pad cup so a normal thickness pad sits evenly in its pad cup which is what you want to achieve with all other pads (only some side keys won't always allow then to sit evenly).

Former oboe finisher
Howarth of London
1998 - 2010
The opinions I express are my own.

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