Author: Chris P
Date: 2008-03-06 13:18
"If you used brand-new cork pads, you can try letting them seat for a few days, by wrapping each pad tightly closed - I use my patented 1 cm rolls of cling-film (saran wrap) for this, but I'm sure you can use plumber's tape also."
Not a good idea to make cork pads seat by compression. It's much better to get thm seating under light finger pressure than forcing them to seat by clamping them down as they'll only recover and leak. Make sure the face of the pad is ground flat and smooth, either use several grades of pumice, grinding the surface flat on a surface plate covered with abrasive paper, or several grades of emery paper glued onto glass. Then trim, sand or file the back of the pad until it's the correct thickness and install with shellac, and move it around until it seats all round under LIGHT finger pressure (not heavy thumb pressure).
Fitting cork pads with holes through them - seat the cork pad and then make a hole cutter from metal tubing (an old radio telescopic aerial will do, cut a length and file the end straight, then sharpen it from the inside), then while rotating the cutter, push it into the centre of the pad (while turning it either between your fingers or using a motor chuck) to make a hole in it. Check for leaks by placing a finger over the hole you just made and sucking the air from the hole in the pad cup. If it leaks, seal the gap between the pad and the pad cup with beeswax applied with a heated metal point, and check it again.
But you can only fit them this way if the pad cup doesn't have a chimney on the inside. Otherwise you'll have to make the hole in the pad before you start, then glue the pad into the pad cup, and grind it down on the pumice blocks or emery to seat it. This is much harder to do as you'll have to keep taking the key off to grind the pad, and replacing it to check if it's seating, making sure it's seating all the way around the circumference of the tonehole crown (bedplace).
Former oboe finisher
Howarth of London
1998 - 2010
The opinions I express are my own.
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