From the moment we got here there was one clarinet player who had a key that was sticking, this is usually because the pad on the underside, that seals one of the wholes on the body of the instrument, is no longer sealing quite right, and can easily be fixed with a dollar bill. However, this particular case was very different. The pads on this clarinet had either fallen off, worn out, been pulled off, or some combination there of. What this means is that we needed whole new pads, a tall order sometimes at home, so essentially impossible here. That meant we needed to either a new instrument, which wasn't going to happen, or some way to replace the pads. Now I enter the tale. I had previously offered to Liz to look at the same instrument to try to get a key moving that was stuck due to corrosion, well within my skill set as a brass player, and a general tinkerer. Using valve oil and and moving the stuck key a lot we managed to get it working, but then Liz approached me with the issue of the missing pads. I told her I'd try to think of something, which was all well and good, but I needed it them (there were two) done in close to 3 hours. I jumped two it. Using manuscript paper (the fancy name for staff paper) and water I laminated pieces together creating a close to solid sheet that was about and eighth of an inch thick. I then pressed this with a dry erase sheet a book then my instrument case to really seal it all together. Finally, after cutting the paper to the right size, I took medical tape and attached the pads to the bottom of the keys. I sign of a good seal is a complete ring around the underside of the pad where the rim of the hole has imprinted the pad. Both the pads I made had this which was a good sign. Liz played the clarinet and hit all the notes that needed the two keys, and on top of that, one of the gents from Spain is a professional clarinetist and we gave me the thumps up of approval too. The first set I made was temporary and I will be making a second set today and attaching them with super glue so there is not medical tape wrapped around the top of the key.
Update: I added some pictures of the process. I made more because the ones I put on yesterday were held on with medical tape, so they look really bad.
Both finished blanks about to be pressed under the dry erase staff paper...
No comments:
Post a Comment