My Project Clarinet

 In this quarter we have 2 project instruments. First a clarinet and then a flute. 


This is my clarinet before I had cleaned or fixed anything on it. I forgot to take a complete before picture but in this one I have not cleaned anything, I just took the keys off. 

The first thing I did was take out all the old pads and remove the old corks. Then it was time for the degreaser and pickle for the keys. 


The degreaser is a vat of purple chemicals that cleans the part before you put it in the acid, and the pickle is a vat of an orange acid called phosphoric acid. I forgot to take a picture of the keys in the pickle but pictured right is what the pickle looks like. 



With the keys cleaned it was time to buff them. Since they were nickel plated I only buffed them using the yellow compound. (Middle ground for buffing compounds, white, yellow, green)



With the keys cleaned I started on the body of the clarinet. My clarinet was wood so cleaning was a bit different that a plastic clarinet. I used a cotton swab soaked in denatured alcohol to remove old oil and gunk from the body.


When that was done I buffed the metal rings that are on the end of each joint. The left picture shows 3 buffed tenon rings and the bell is not buffed yet. 


Then I soaked the body in an oil mixture to rehydrate the wood. This I did multiple coats as it soaked in quite well. 


Once the body was done hydrating, it was time to get rid of any lateral or end play with the keys. This is when the keys move side to side when they are attatched to the body. This was done by swedging with collets or pliers. Swedging squishes the hinge tube so that the hinge rod does not move about inside the tube. 



With all of the keys fitted, I started replacing and leveling pads. All of the keys that were sprung closed got synthetic pads (foam) and the ones that were sprung open got bladder pads. 


Next on the list was to add cork where it was needed. I measured each key for how thick of cork to use, then I glued and cut each one. Regulation and lost motion was done at this stage as well.


Finaly I put the keys back on the body of the clarinet, wiped everything down to get rid of fingerprints and excess residue. I then playtested the clarinet and I am pretty happy with how my first clarinet turned out!



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