A quickie In-Key pad replacement (a Pixie Dust lesson)

Steve

Steve

Clarinet CE/Moderator
Staff member
CE/Moderator
Quickie Pad Replacement

Every so often I check out a clarinet which is close to be really good and only needs tweaking. My older used Buffet E-11 “A” clarinet is such an example. A few tweaks here and there and it’s been perfect for a long time. All except one key, the C# pad which sticks and makes noise. I just have not had the energy to take apart all the lower spatula keys just to replace that one key pad. After all, only I hear the annoying thing and it plays and seals just fine.

Well playing a Mozart quintet I just got tired of it. So I did one of my pad replacements where you don’t take any keywork off. This technique actually works anywhere on a standard boehm clarinet.

But I have a few techniques where this is actually plausible, more like my shellac which is pulverized and allows me to pour this pixie dust into a pad cup where a shellac stick would not suffice. Pellets may but I have my pixie dust (crushed French cement).

In this case because it is a closed key, the C# I wedge the key open as much as possible. (see below)
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In these cases I do not like using a direct flame. Once, just once accidentally slightly scorching a wood clarinet has raised my adverseness to that technique. Thus now I use a hobby soldering gun which has a flat part to the tip (see below) for pad adjustments.
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Next I use my hobby soldering gun against the C# pad. In this case the pad is always up, and the key down. For this size key usually I only have to count up to 16. Smaller pads up to 6 before the adhesive is soft enough for the pad to be pulled out.




Now since I’ve never done any pad work on this Shreiber before I don’t know what I’m getting myself into. With the pad out I scrap out the adhesive with a small screwdriver. I also have a small metal “L” shape doohickie which works well too. In this case we have my worst enemy. Really stringy silicon adhesive. Nice. One of those instances where you now debate just taking the keywork off just to clean out the pad cup properly.

Anyways .. I degress ….
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Next since I had the otiginal pad in whole, I can check for size and select a replacement.
I then put the new pad in the cup just to see how it fits. Here I have a feeler strip (the feeler tool I took off) and check around just to get an idea of how I will have to adjust it from floating on the shellac. Then I take the pad back out.
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So with the pad cup cleaned out I take my pixie dust
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And scoop some into the pad cup itself
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Then I heat up the pad cup with the pixie dust
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Here you can barely see that it’s molten. If there too much you simply use the screw driver and roll it in the molten shellac and it balls up on the end and remove it. If there’s a bit too much don’t worry. It’s one of those experience thing of knowing how hot and how much to put in. you also want to poke the top of heated shellac to let out any built up heat inside, just in case. I’m usually quite good with my timing of my tool to properly melt the shellac.
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Then I put the pad in and float it properly with possibly reheating and viola. It’s as good as new with a slight indentation.
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If there’s too much shellac one slightly presses the key the shellac will come out around the pad. For this technique it really isn’t a problem. Once the shellac cools I just use a xacto blade and it just breaks right off with no issues and cleanly too. A small key brush to wipe off the dust and all is ready to go.

Now my “A” doesn’t have that annoying stuck pad sound.
Total time under 10 minutes excluding the pics.

Now back to Mozart

I think I have a future in Live Elevator Music.
 
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Awesome demonstration. I'll have to try shellac on my next repad.

I know I am a newbie, but I would like to share that dental tools are excellent at removing old stuck pads. And the work very well at scraping the cups while still attached to the instrument. I got a set here for under $5 shipped. Well worth it. They are sometimes good with needle springs too.
 
Very interesting that you use a soldering iron to heat the key cup. For clarinets, I generally use a soldering gun with the tip cut off so the electrical current heats the key. It is the poor man's version of the Votaw Pad Cup Heater. It heats quickly, but it is important to release the trigger before removing the tips from the key because the electricity arcs and leaves marks in the metal. Don't ask me how I know this.

I am curious as to why you prefer French shellac for clarinet pads. In my neck of the woods most techs use heat glue. I may put a few sticks of shellac in an old coffee grinder and make some powder myself just to try your trick.
 
jbtsax said:
I am curious as to why you prefer French shellac for clarinet pads. In my neck of the woods most techs use heat glue. I may put a few sticks of shellac in an old coffee grinder and make some powder myself just to try your trick.
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Why French Shellac? I was taught that way, back when we were colonies of France .. oh wait ...

Anyways, an old habit and an old technique taught to me back in the day. I once had some customers who required a hard base and did not like the "feel" they got from keywork using flexible adhesives. I tested them. They got 100% so no argument from me.

It takes a bit more technique and know how to use. If you heat it up too much the heat build up underneath the surface (which is cooled by the air) may have it explode. Thus the reason it is best to poke it just in case.

As you heat the shellac it will bubble up, or if done on moderate heat start bubbling underneath the surface which stays smooth and it can raise up. If you put a pad on shellac that is a bit too hot the pad keeps the heat in and you'll end up with a pad raising up above the keycup .. like a loaf of bread cooking.

Of course the pad, if not pricked, could contain the heat and the bladder material could bubble up too.

If you heat shellac too much and burn it it looses some of its adhesiveness.

But I've been doing it for so long I normally get it right the first time.

Gary Ferree once told me to use regular shellac instead as you could just use the pellets. He's the only one who ever tried to get me to change (but I had too much supply of french cement at that time). But then I think it was him that got me started on using french cement shellac in the first place.
 
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How do you deal with getting hot glue out? It seems heat and a q-tip could get most of it out. The rest could scrape out once cooled. From my noviceness, a hotglue gun is just much easier. But, if the glue is too much of a hassle to get out, I'll have to switch over to shellac flakes. Thanks
 
normally hot glue just peels right out.

There are some types that are just a real pain to get out. One in particular that is super stringy, burns the fingers if it touches you, and other than using a solvent it just fights you in getting out of the cup (such as the above example).

Hot glue is also faster to install, etc. If you go to any retail music store instrument repair more than likely they use hot glue.
 
Cool, thanks.

Two items that are in and will stay in my possibles bag are a hot glue gun and a battery powered weller solder iron.
 
jbtsax said:
Very interesting that you use a soldering iron to heat the key cup. For clarinets, I generally use a soldering gun with the tip cut off so the electrical current heats the key. It is the poor man's version of the Votaw Pad Cup Heater. It heats quickly, but it is important to release the trigger before removing the tips from the key because the electricity arcs and leaves marks in the metal. Don't ask me how I know this..
Click to expand...

I love the Votaw Cup Heater. But this solution works good for me because I can time how quickly I want the shellac to melt dependent upon the adjustment I need. The Votaw works too quickly. With the adherent heat properties (problems) of french cement (bubbling up/expansion) I just prefer the flat iron soldering gun or flame.

A regular soldering gun isn't ideal when I tried it before. This one has a flat iron on it though if the cup isn't flat .. it at least allows you a couple contact points and on the last keycups you put it in 2 locations (either side) for proper heating of the cement that I use.

On saxophone I always use a flame. Though adjustments are a pain when there cork/felt around with the keys on the horn. I just need another hand trying to hold the felt/pearl protector.
 
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The Votaw pad cup heater is nice for some things but it's a horrible design. The handpiece is pretty flimsy in general and it really should open significantly more to be more useful. It would be much better if it was possible to open and use it at both sides of at least the bigger key cups of clarinets.

By the way it is available for a slightly lower price from here (only difference is the look of the PSU and some buttons on the Trioton version) http://www.micromark.com/triton-resistance-soldering-iron,7890.html
I'm sure it is the same company making both.
 
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