How to treat the wood ?
Rick
there some kind of polish I can wipe on to make it look better? Any
help would be appreciated.
Thanks,
Rick
Stephen Howard
The wood on a clarinet needs some fairly careful looking after,
particularly the bore, and it's a procedure that, while essentially
simple. can be quite a tricky business.
If you like, email me and I'll send you a huge letter about how it's
all done!
For the exterior, there are no polishes you can use that will do any
good - and you'd be better off using a bore oil to condition the wood.
For preference I use groundnut oil ( with a few secret ingredients
mixed in! ), though you can also use sweet almond oil or lemon oil,
which is popular with guitarists for use on their ebony fingerboards.
You only need a very small amount on a soft lint-free cloth, and you
will have to be very careful to keep the oil away from the pads and
corks.
Under no circumstances should you use Linseed oil.
This is a common question, and to be honest I think the best advice
that can be given is to take your clarinet along to a repairer to have
an oil job done and ask to be shown how to do it safely. If they
refuse to show you, go elsewhere!
Once you've learned the technique you'll be able to care for the wood
without risking your pads and action.
Regards,
Stephen Howard - Woodwind repairs & period restorations
Emails to: shwoodwind{who is at}callnetuk dot com
An Beazar
Rick wrote in message <37BB9C...@erienet.net>...
>What or how do you treat the wood on a clarinet? (the outside part) Is
>there some kind of polish I can wipe on to make it look better? Any
>help would be appreciated.
>
>Thanks,
>Rick
You can easily oil your instrument yourself, but it won't be as good as
taking it to a repairer. Repairers take away all the metal, and put the
wooden part in a kind of oil-bath for a few hours, so the wood can "drink"
the oil .
Let a repairer oil your clarinet when it looks very dry inside. Other
times you can do it yourself.
You can put little pieces of paper between the wood and your pads to protect
the corks against oil.
Regards,
An
Stephen Howard
wrote:
>You can easily oil your instrument yourself, but it won't be as good as
>taking it to a repairer. Repairers take away all the metal, and put the
>wooden part in a kind of oil-bath for a few hours, so the wood can "drink"
>the oil .
>Let a repairer oil your clarinet when it looks very dry inside. Other
>times you can do it yourself.
>You can put little pieces of paper between the wood and your pads to protect
>the corks against oil.
>
>Regards,
>An
Oooh, no we don't!!!!
Shoving a clarinet into a bath of oil is not a good idea!!
Wood expands and contracts according to many environmental factors,
the two main ones being temperature and humidity.
If you drop a clarinet body into a bath of oil you have absolutely no
control over the absorbtion rate of the oil.
OK, 49 times out of 50 you'll get away with it, but there will be that
one time when it's all too much for the body, and hey presto! whopping
great split!
Better to err on the side of caution and oil the body and bore in
stages to minimise any stress to the wood.
Over cautious? Maybe, but then that's what people pay me for!
And I've never split an instrument yet.
Please bear in mind I only mention this in case someone out there is
tempted to try the oil bath method, with possibly dire results.
Regards,
Stephen Howard - Woodwind repairs & period restorations
Emails to: shwoodwind(who is at)bigfoot(dot)com
Richard Bush
I relish your contributions. I do not question your caution.
Do you have any documentation from others who have baptized a body with
a period of complete immersion and had it crack? You said you've never
had it happen, but there must be some reason for your comments.
Mark Charette
to oil, what to use for oiling, or in fact whether to oil or not!
One prominent oboe manufacturer will not guarantee their product if it is
oiled, and Buffet currently recommends that a new clarinet _not_ be oiled.
However, you can easily find contrary opinions.
Me - I haven't oiled my 5 year old clarinet (Selmer 10G) in 2 years. No
checking at all.
YMMV.
Mark Char...@sneezy.org, Webmaster, http://www.sneezy.org
Stephen Howard
No documentation no, but then who's going to write down that they
split a clarinet through over oiling!!! ( Not me, that's for sure!! ).
The reason I've never had it happen is that I don't use an oil bath,
but over the years I've seen a number of casualties via this method,
usually from distraught clients, but occasionaly from contacts within
the trade.
Characteristic of an oil crack is a split radiating outwards from a
tone hole. Normal stress splits tend to run into tone holes.
Please don't ask me why this is so!! No doubt a boffin will have a
plausible explanation!!
To perhaps put this into perspective with regard to the potential for
expansion I could do no worse than to describe a common restoration
job.
An early clarinet, 18th century, boxwood body, ivory rings and
fittings.
The ivory bell ring is almost always loose, the gap between the rim of
the bell and the bore of the ring being as much as two millimetres.
One careful oil job later and that gap has almost closed.
Now a bell doesn't have any tone holes, and there is a certain
latitude for buckling that will allow the wood to move without undue
harm - but apply that same amount of expansion to a joint and you
could be in very serious trouble if the stresses are not distributed
carefully.
If I honestly thought that immersion was a good method of oiling then
I'd use it - it would save lots of time!
With regard to another post on this topic, I suspect that the reason
some manufacturers advise against oiling is for precisely this reason
- to much oil is often worse than none at all!
I'm not sure what the situation as regards oiling would be over the
pond - you're talking greater extemes of temperature and humidity. and
I'd have thought that immersion oiling would be substantially more
risky out there.
Anyone care to comment?
Derek Brown
<An.B...@rug.ac.be> writes
>You can easily oil your instrument yourself, but it won't be as good as
>taking it to a repairer. Repairers take away all the metal, and put the
>wooden part in a kind of oil-bath for a few hours, so the wood can "drink"
>the oil .
>Let a repairer oil your clarinet when it looks very dry inside. Other
>times you can do it yourself.
>You can put little pieces of paper between the wood and your pads to protect
>the corks against oil.
>
Paper will absorb the oil, and act like a wick to attract the oil onto
the pads! Better to use plastic 'cling film', which is impervious to the
oil.
--
Derek Brown
email de...@brwn.demon.co.uk
Mark Bradley
On period instruments, maybe it is necessary to oil the wood, but on newer
instruments, I mean even those that are quite old (old new clarinets?), I
would think that sometimes it's not necessary at all. They soak the wood
in oil before even beginning to manufacture, and I'd imagine that would
last a LONG time. I know the same Buffet technician who Mr. Charette
mentioned who strongly suggests against oiling, and he says this is because
it does not need oil. If he thought it was necessary then he would have
done it when i brought my instrument in. I would tend to agree to his
advice, but then again others think differently. I'm not questioning your
thoughts, Mr. Howard, I have no doubt you know what you're doing and if I'm
ever in England then I'll swing by for a visit (i'll bring my E-11, it's so
bright you could light a large room with it).
I just thought I'd mention this because there's no set opinion or rule on
oiling the bore of a clarinet. If it cracks and you haven't oiled it,
blame it on that. If it cracks and you have oil it, you can say you did
all you can. If it doesn't crack and you haven't oiled it, then you can
use the money not spent on bore oil on reeds. If it doesn't crack and you
have oiled it, thank yourself for oiling.
I haven't oiled and my clarinet, about 3 years old, looks good as new, bore
is hardly cracked. I'm not sure whether or not this is because northern
New York is more humid, i always thought it was kind of dry here. Lake
Champlain can't do THAT much.
Regards and good luck,
Mark A. Bradley
Chazy, New York
Stephen Howard
Agreed, oiling is a contentious issue - and one of those knotty
problems that has no real answer. Who can say why a clarinet does or
does not split?
But I will add this much.
If you examine a clarinet and take a good look at the tone holes you
will often find that the bore there is relatively rough as the hole is
cut across the grain.
Any woodworker will know what happens when moisture and end grain mix,
the grain will rise, and quite significantly too.
Over a number of years the grains will rot, exposing fresh grain
beneath, and given time this softening effect can spread quite some
distance into the wood.
OK, so this may not cause the instrument to crack, but it will affect
the timbre and tuning of the instrument.
I'm sure that anyone who has owned a brand new clarinet has noticed
how brown the pads go after a while, and this is due to the seepage of
the natural oils out of the wood.
Clearly when the instrument is new the wood is in prime condition ( we
hope!! ), and inevitably when you begin to play the instrument you set
off a gradual process of deterioration.
Oiling the bore is an effective means of combatting that
deterioration, particularly in the tone holes.
When you work with wood for any length of time you get a 'feel' for
it. You can pick up a piece of old wood and feel how dry and light it
is, you can see how dull it looks.
A prime example is the barrel of a wooden clarinet, and every year I
see literally hundreds of dried up barrels that seem to be crying out
'oil me! Oil me'. And it works.
You said that you hadn't oiled the bore in three years, and to be
honest I doubt that will be much of a problem - but give it another
three years and then have a look at the wood, and see how you feel
then.
On a more technical note you might like to think about this.
If we assume that the bore of a wooden instrument will absorb a
certain amount of moisture ( which it will ), then what you are
putting it through when you play it is a constant cycle of wetting,
drying, wetting, drying etc.
Take any porous material and apply this regime and it will deteriorate
- from paper to concrete.
What oiling does is to minimize the absorbtion of moisture, thus
providing a more stable environment for the wood to live in.
Don't forget also that wood is still a living thing, even when it's in
the form of a clarinet. It contains enzymes and such like, and your
spit and condensation contain similar such organisms - and minerals
too.
These can and will have an effect on your instrument - a classic
example being those white calcium deposits so often seen in
mouthpieces, and oiling provides a safe and effective means of
protecting your pride and joy from such incremental deterioration.
In fact, the calcium issue alone is enough to provide me with
incentive to oil my own instruments!!
Being a party almost every day to the difference between an old
clarinet on its last legs, and the same instrument after an overhaul
and a good oil I can say hand on heart that I thoroughly recommend
oiling the bore!
Nevertheless I am quite happy not to oil if the client so desires -
because in the end it is a matter of choice.
To return, briefly, to the the original point ( cries of 'at last',
'Hurrah' and 'make mine a large one!' ), still maintain that using an
oil bath is a risky procedure, and I feel that my method of gentle
oiling sits nicely inbetween the oil/no oil camps!!
Moderation, in all things - well, nearly all anyway!
I'd also like to say ( cries of 'gettim orf' ) that the feedback on
this newsgroup, and on the other wind instrument groups, is second to
none.
I haven't enjoyed myself so much since I saw a mini-bus reverse over a
Parrot saxophone! Many thanks for your challenging viewpoints. Any
more???
PS. Mark, I charge extra for people to call me Mr. Howard! Steve will
do for all those who call with open hearts and open minds.
And should you ever care to call then let me know and I'll send you a
map, compass, supply of emergency rations and an SOS beacon - I am
somewhat 'out in the sticks'!!
Best wishes,
Stephen Howard - Woodwind repairs & period restorations
Emails to: shwoodwind{who is at}bigfoot dot com
Thomas Herbell
Stephen Howard wrote:
The wood on a clarinet needs some fairly careful looking after,
> For the exterior, there are no polishes you can use that will do any
> good - and you'd be better off using a bore oil to condition the wood.
> For preference I use groundnut oil ( with a few secret ingredients
> mixed in! ), though you can also use sweet almond oil or lemon oil,
> which is popular with guitarists for use on their ebony fingerboards.
> You only need a very small amount on a soft lint-free cloth, and you
> will have to be very careful to keep the oil away from the pads and
> corks.
Selmer suggests the use of pure olive oil. I expect that means what is
classified as "Extra Virgin," although I am not sure what the 'extra' is.
Thomas Herbell
grenadilla wood with ists close grain. I have oiled my stable of
clarinets on a fairly reqular basias for something over 50 years. Not all
of them, since some are somewhat newer vintage. Before putting a horn
away for awhile, I alwas oil the bore. The ones I play regularly ( a
couple of hours a day) get a weekly touch up after letting them rest a day
or so to dry up. Barrels get more attention as do the top sections. I
try to keep the lime build-up to a minimum and have been known to cork the
ends of a barrel and fill it with oil. The incredible shrinking bells
also get frequent attention along with a moist plaster block in them when
not in use. Occasionally I resort to a "humidity chamber on some of
them. The older pre 1940 and newer 1980 on horns seem less prone to
needing oil. But, since I always swab them dry after playing them, any
excess oil is removed. All you have to do is look at my swabs between
washing.
Stephen Howard
<tph...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>Selmer suggests the use of pure olive oil. I expect that means what is
>classified as "Extra Virgin," although I am not sure what the 'extra' is.
>
Hmmm, I'm not so sure about this.
Olive oil is a 'vegetable oil', whereas Groundnut oil is a 'Nut' oil.
I've found that nut oils have a greater resistance to going rancid,
and I would have thought that the structure of a nut oil is closer to
that of the natural oils of a wood.
The 'Extra' in olive oil indicates a 'First pressing', and I think
you'll find that such oils can tend to be a little bit acidic - hence
their popularity as a base for food dressings.
Regards,
Talmage Powell
LeliaLoban
took band from a guy who told us to oil lightly on 4th of July and New Year's.
Period. So that's what I did with my 1958 Conn. It never cracked, even when I
stored it unplayed for a number of years. The wood stayed in beautiful
condition. Therefore I never thought about it a whole lot and never even
realized there was a controversy until I started reading the www.sneezy.org
bulletin board about a year and a half ago! Along the way, I also acquired a
1937 Buffet, now my main Bb clarinet, and a 1979 Selmer alto. Both were also
in fine condition, but looked and felt ashy-dry, so (despite current
admonitions from Buffet never to oil the *new* ones), I oiled those guys and
put them on my regular 4th of July and New Year's schedule.
But two weeks ago, at a yard sale, I picked up a 1975-ish Selmer Signet Special
(sold as intermediate grade) that had been absolutely marinated. It was so
greasy it left an oil slick on me no matter where I touched it. The case --
feh! The original owner hadn't just taken this clarinet out and dipped it in
the Crisco prior to selling it. Either she chronically over-oiled it and used
twenty times too much cork grease, or she decided to do a really *good* job of
oiling it when she quit and put it away. This was old, old grease that had
gone gummy with age (all the volatile fractions long since evaporated out) and
attracted a layer of dirt. The mouthpiece was in filthy condition. She'd left
an old reed on there, full of lipstick. The reed had stuck to the rubber
mouthpiece. I had to soak this mess in mouthwash before I could peel the
deteriorated reed off. Yuck.
For the body of the clarinet, I took off all the keys and cleaned up this mess,
mostly just by swabbing it down with paper towels, then flannel rags, then a
very damp rag outside and damp bore swab inside, until brown gunk stopped
coming off, then finished up with dry, clean flannel rag and dry, clean bore
swab. Interesting thing about that: the clarinet had many years to absorb all
this oil, and didn't, so I believe the people who say the wood is fat enough
that most of the oil does just sit on the surface, at least in places where the
end grain isn't exposed. The end grain of this clarinet looks fine. That may
be because the Selmer has tenon rings everywhere it's possible to put them.
Also, the clarinet wasn't under stress or full of condensation, just sitting in
the case for years. I think she kept it indoors (she said she did, and I
believe her: the outside of the case looked quite clean), so it probably wasn't
exposed to extreme temperature changes.
Okay, now what? I think we've got 4th of July covered, and then some, but what
about next New Year's? My house gets very dry in winter when I've got the heat
on. This clarinet has got more oil in it now than I would normally put on a
clarinet. Must a clarinet accustomed to heavy oiling be kept heavily oiled?
I'd like to keep this clarinet in good shape, because it's far better thanI
expected, good enough for me to use it for practice most of the time, instead
of putting more wear and tear on the vintage Buffet. Thanks for any
recommendations.
Lelia
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