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Re: Regulating E/B anF/C keys

Author: Chris P
Date: 2020-11-10 01:06

Most crow's foot adjustments go out of whack because the F/C touchpiece gets bent down as that's often a fairly weak casting and the touchpiece arm isn't particularly strong. Mostly caused by ill-fitting cases, placing anything on top of the instrument while in its case or using soft-sided cases and overloading the lid pocket with all manner of stuff which puts excessive pressure on the keywork. That can be corrected by gently bending the F/C touch back up an checking until you can get E/B with just the LH lever and the E/B pad closes with slightly less pressure than the F/C pad.

If there's a gap between the E/B touch and the crow's foot and you can still get E/B with the LH lever alone, then the linkage has been bent which is down to either the silencing materials having compressed or careless handling during assembly causing the E/B key to get bent upwards. That's easy enough to bend back if it's a bent lever by holding the RH E/B touchpiece down and gently bending the linkage arm down until the gap has gone. Then check and adjust to get the ideal closing pressure on both F/C and E/B pads.

If the silencing material is missing, then replace it and do any further adjustments by bending the keys instead of sanding things uneven - always better to have even thicknesses of cork, felt or whatever material you choose to use instead of ones that look like steps or hacked to bits using an axe.

I never use cork on the crow's foot as it's too noisy - either thin felt or ultrasuede. Likewise with the E/B stopper - cork and tech cork is too noisy for open-standing keys (and don't use cork on linkages as it's too compressible and weak).

Pick the ideal thickness felt or ultrasuede for the key feet or crow's foot and regulate the keywork by bending the keys. And take into account keywork has a certain amount of torsion in it, so don't go all text book and think everything has to close with the same pressure as that will go out of regulation very fast - you can slightly over adjust things when new silencing materials have been used as they will compress, but still remain in regulation instead of ending up out of regulation.

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

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