Woodwind Repair Basics

This is my practice clarinet. I picked it because the case looked neat. It's a Weiss clarinet, which is a brand I've never heard of before, but it's a nice little clarinet. It played really well before I started taking it apart, but I don't know if it's still good now that I've taken it apart and tinkered with it.

Clarinet Dissection

The first thing we did with our shiny new clarinet was to take all of the keys off the upper joint, get it inspected and then put the keys back on.

After that, we had to take the lower joint apart, get it inspected, and put the keys back on.

And after that, we had to switch clarinets with someone and take all of the keys off and then put them back on.

And remember folks, an empty screw board is a happy screw board.

Key Corking

We began our key corking/razor blade use practice on the register key and throat Ab.

We put a light coating of contact cement on half of the touch piece and half of the cork strip and let it cure for fifteen minutes before joining the two and trimming the cork close to the edge of the touch piece. Then with a fresh razor blade we trimmed the cork at a 90 degree angle all the way around the touchpiece, trying to make sure that we cut the cork in one long, clean motion. After that we had to bevel the edge and make everything look nice and neat.

All of this trimming, beveling, and blending with fresh razor blade almost every time meant that we burnt through a large number of blades in one afternoon of practice.

The picture's not of the best quality, but I was so proud of this one that I felt it needed to be commemorated

Padding

We started off by removing the old pad and putting a new pad in.

I took my torch and held the pad cup over the flame until the old glue melted and the old pad fell out pretty much on its own.

Then I put the empty cup back over the flame and scraped the excess glue out of the cup with the end of a screwdriver.

I then took the empty cup over to the pad cabinets and picked the right size pad. I poked a tiny hole into the side of the pad, melted the glue and applied it to the pad. I dropped the pad into the cup and rotated it with my finger to spread the glue around.

I then put the key back onto the instrument and make sure it's sitting level.

Replacing Round Springs

My work clarinet had quite a few round springs that were either loose or missing so I had to replace them. The post with the yellow box around it is the one that needs a replacement spring.

Since I didn't have the original spring, I couldn't measure it and find the correct size that way so I had to take the body with me and test spring sizes until I found one that fit the best. I stuck it into the post and figured out the length I needed by measuring it against the spring cradle on the key. After I got the right length, I bent the spring around the post and then cut the excess off.

I then took my steel block and a hammer and flattened one of the ends into a dove tail so that it would stay in place inside the post.

Once the spring is snug inside the post, you take a grinding wheel and ground the dove tail end down until it is rounded and flush with the post.

Now the key can be put back on and work properly again