Anyone own a solid grenadilla clarinet in the Phoenix, AZ area? Any special care needed to prevent cracking? Extremely concerned...

Mausle

Hello Woodwind Forum members! I'm new here and wanted to check with you all regarding the care of a solid wood instrument here in Phoenix. Just received an Uebel Classic on trial for my son. He's the clarinet player and has been progressing very well over the past three years. His aging Vito, which we purchased on Ebay is beginning to fail so I wanted to get him a better instrument. My only concern is with the humidity levels dropping into the 20% range in the summer that it might develop cracks. Should we be doing anything special to keep this from happening? Do we need to use a humidifying system, or not? We know never to transport in the trunk and keep it out of extreme heat and cold. Any advice any of you could provide would be greatly appreciated! :)
Thanks!
 
20%? You mean 1%. I'm in Mesa. Lived here for 25ish years.

My wife, who has also lived out here 25ish years, has two wood clarinets and hasn't seen any problem with them. I would still like to take them out and give them a good oil bath every year, but that's also about how often she plays, so I don't get to. I think both horns are currently in one of those "u-store-it" places, which is temperature controlled, but not humidity controlled.

I do know about the little humidifier sticks that you can throw into a case. I don't use them, but it'd be interesting to get some comments from someone that does.
 
Thanks Pete!
Hopefully a few others will chime in. I'm glad to hear your wife hasn't had any issues with her wood clarinets.
Are there any Phoenix orchestra members on the forum who might have any tips?
I also didn't know about oiling them. Will need to research this as well.
 
Oiling the bore has become a bit controversial in the last 20 years or so (probably because of the internet!). When I started playing in the 1960's folks oiled the bore several times a year. It was just the conventional wisdom among teachers and repair techs. More recently, some have come out and said that too much oiling clogs the pores of the wood, which can cause other problems. I can't recall the exact arguments, but I'm guessing a Bing / Google search would turn up some interesting results. Most music retailers still sell woodwind bore oil, but I can't imagine they sell much. I still have the bottle that came with my new clarinet in 1969.
 
I used to oil a couple times a year, when I a) had a clarinet and b) remembered to, when I lived in Buffalo, NY; a place that has had up to 99% humidity. At that time, I just oiled inside the horn with a swab dedicated to that purpose, but I've seen a paper posted on this forum and a bit of discussion regarding actually submerging the horn in oil.

Y'know, I did miss one obvious thing. If the horn is brand new, it probably has a warranty. Even if there isn't a warranty in play, you can always contact the place where you got it from and/or Uebel, themselves and ask what they recommend.

Adding to what saxhound said, I never heard about old wooden instruments, particularly clarinets, being "blown out" until the advent of the Internet. Hmm.
 
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