Thursday, September 20, 2012

Week 4- Key Adjustment, Padding, and Corking

Finishing out the repad week, I have been spending a lot of time eliminating lateral and end play.  I had a particular challenge with my clarinet's Throat A key.  The posts were not in alignment, and after a cost-benefit analysis, it was obvious that removing and resetting the post was not my best option.

As seen above, I then flared an opening on the hinge tube to allow for some lateral play when the hinge rod entered the non-aligned post.  While the fix didn't eliminate the problem, given the student model clarinet and the cost of resetting the post, I learned a very real-life approach to solving my problem.

After adjusting the key fitting I installed and set the pads on my clarinet.  Above are the upper joint keys before setting the pads on their tone holes.  Especially concerning the upper joint, I found that as you assemble the instrument, pad fitting becomes more difficult.  Fitting one pad at a time and then removing the key seemed a better option and less likely to burn a surrounding pad by accident.

While setting the pad for the C trill key, I had trouble getting a seal.  Upon closer inspection, I found that the tone hole was not level. Using my new tone hole leveler, I was able to sand a level surface and obtain a quality seal on the tone hole.  The same process was repeated when I found the Alternate F# tone hole was also uneven.

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