Matched Set of Old Buffet Clarinets - 4/26/13

One of our big projects at work this week was a matched set of Buffet clarinets - one Bb, one A - that came in a neat old double case. They are very nice solid body instruments with all sorts of unique key mechanisms. Both were in for overhauls - they got disassembled and cleaned, the bores were oiled, all the keys and posts were buffed, all pads and corks were replaced, and parts were repaired/straightened/sealed as needed. I got to work on the Bb while my associate, M, did the A. It was an enlightening experience because, while we're each pretty well in tune with how the other works, we got to see the parallels in our work in real-time. And since we wanted the work to be identical between the two instruments, that meant we each had to scrutinize the other's work and ask questions about our repective techniques. For instance, I always use cork on a particular articulation on clarinets, but Mike asked that I use teflon sheet to match his work, which worked much better. I dry-fit all the pads on my clarinet before gluing them, which allowed me to advise him on what pads to use. The instruments cleaned up very nicely and will look great when they're finished. I'll be sure to post follow up images next week, but for now I wanted to make sure I preserved some images of them "before."

Here are the two side-by-side. Bb on top. Notice that the G# keys are in line with the other mainline keys instead of being on the side, both have Low Bb/Eb keys, left hand Ab/Eb levers, and an open-hole pad for the middle finger of the left hand.

The trademarks are stamped with W.H Cundy on the Bb bell and H. Bettoney on the A bell. Cundy and Bettoney in Boston were apparently one of the early Buffet importers in the US.

  A close-up view of the low end keys, with the Eb/Bb key at the far left side of the picture. Sorry about the dental floss. I don't know why I didn't cut that off before taking pictures. Lord knows why it was there.

The right hand keys have an extra trill key between the top and middle rings, and a screw on the Bb/F pad cup that closes the C#/G# key when trilling.

The key for the middle finger of the left hand is usually just a ring over a chimney. Similar rings are visible on the right and left of this picture. But these instrument have a pad there with an open hole in the middle, which I'm told is for playing a forked Eb. The pad and key cup are identical to those found on open-hole flutes, and the key takes a flute pad. This is the only pad on the instrument that's not glued in. Instead it's held in place with a grommet and leveled with paper shims that are stacked inside the key cup.

A shot of the tone hole under that pad. The hole that air vents out of is quite small; about the same size as the opening in the pad. But the pad seats, or seals, against the lip surrounding that hole. I guess the hole is smaller to allow proper intonation or tone quality, as the size of a tone hole vastly affects those two things.

Reaching the top of the instrument, we have a register key that wraps around to the top of the bore. Most register keys sit on the bottom of the bore where they're prone to collect water and dirt. I love these wrap-around keys. They're big and ugly and out-of-place and I love them.

Lesson Learned - 4/23/13

Clicking Forked Bb on saxophone? Oil or grease the Bb key pivot screws if it has them, as well as the regulation screws on the F# key. I've found that every time, that takes care of the clicking. That's after I've checked to make sure all the pivot screws are tight, that none of the rollers are getting some sort of sympathetic vibrations (by oiling them, too), and that the regulation screws aren't wobbling in their holes. If they are, I can usually get them to tighten up by squishing the threads on them a little bit with a pair of pliers. But after checking all those things, if there's still clicking, oiling the pivot screws and regulation screws always takes care of the problem.

Lesson Learned - 4/18/13

I have a recurring problem with flutes that I especially notice when I'm overhauling them. I think I'm pretty careful about leveling tone holes, then making sure pads are perfectly level to the tone holes when I install them. But inevitably I'll level pads, move on to something else, and then go back to double check them and find that they are leaking in the back. By "back," I mean the part of the pad closest to the hinge. I haven't yet figured out why this is, but my suspicion is this: When I install and level the pads, I'm usually doing it with just the spring for that particular key set in its cradle. On the lower stack, for instance, if I'm working on the F pad, I usually won't have the springs set for F#, E, or D. But when I get everything put together and re-check the pad later I'll find that it's open in the back. In fact, I'll usually find that all the lower stack pads are leaking in the back. I suspect this is because the forces exerted on the lower stack by hooking all four springs causes the hinge rod to either bend or rise up from the body, thereby changing the way the pads interface with their tone holes. I tried to experiment with this a little bit today, but didn't see any compelling evidence to support my hypothesis. I'll be playing around with that idea more, though, and hopefully I'll come up with more concrete explanation.

Lesson Learned - 4/17/13

It seems that there is no safe setting to run our ultrasonic cleaner on old or antique instruments. The other day I tried an experiment with different intensities on a trumpet main tuning slide that was rotted, to see at what intensity it would develop holes in the rotted areas. This has been a frequent problem for us in the past, especially on horn leadpipes, which seem prone to collecting gunk and then having it sit there for a long time while the metal of the leadpipe deteriorates. In my little experiment, the mouthpiece survived a 3-minute soak in the chemical bath with no ultrasonic agitation, then survived 3 minutes with the ultrasonic set at 40% intensity. After 3 minutes at 50% intensity, though, pinholes started developing. 
So then my coworker M tried putting an old Conn 22B trumpet in and running it at 40% intensity, figuring that would be enough to clean the instrument without damaging the metal. Of course, this was only based on my pretty poorly executed experiment, so we shouldn't have been surprised when the main tuning crook developed cracks. There was no rot on the instrument. But because it's about 80 years old, it's possible the metal may have just developed some fractures over time.
I've read about "season cracking," which is a problem specific to brass where residual stresses in the metal that are created during the forming process cause cracks when the brass is exposed to temperature changes and, more importantly, ammonia. The problem was initially discovered in British ammunition cartridges that were stored in stables near copious amounts of horse urine. Well, they weren't intentionally stored near horse urine. They were stored near horses, which happen to turn water into that offending substance. I don't imagine this trumpet spent a lot of time around horses, but perhaps there was some other source of ammonia that could have caused the problem, or maybe the temperature changes of some 80-odd years were enough to cause to the failure of this particular instrument without any source of ammonia. Whatever the case, the crook of a main tuning slide would be especially susceptible to season cracking because of the huge amount of stress that is exerted on it during manufacture. It's interesting to note that simply annealing the part after forming will remove these stresses and therefore all but eliminate the possibility of season cracking.
Getting back to the point, though; The lesson is that we haven't yet found a perfectly safe method for cleaning fragile instruments. I don't think anyone has found a perfectly safe method, and that's why there are so many techniques out there. At least for now, I think we'd do well not to run old or fragile instruments through the ultrasonic at all, except as a last option when other methods don't get them clean. Right now it's our first and last resort because it's so convenient and consistently performs well, but that's an approach that needs to be revised when it comes to these types of instruments.