I purchased a used Yamaha YCL 221ii bass clarinet. It came with an issue at the top joint. See picture below. What is the piece of material in the neck? I've never seen this before. There was also a crack in the metal (slit) in the neck. Sorry, I am a newbie and could use some advise on if this instrument is salvageable. Obviously, the seller didn't see these things and I would have bought it had I known. Any advice is appreciated!
Bass Clarinet top joint issue?
- Thread starter Momof3
- Start date
Tony Fairbridge
Tony F
The slit in the body is meant to be there. The sleeve looks to be out of round, but it should be possible for a properly equipped repairer to fix this. Not a major problem. I think the crack in the neck was caused by an attempt to resize it to make it a better fit on the body. It should be fixable, but do not attempt to do this by silver-soldering, as the temperatures used will be high enough to melt the soft-soldering where the sleeve is soldered onto the neck.
The second photo is out of focus so not sure what the issue is. If it's the slot, then it should be there to tighten the neck in place so it doesn't rotate while playing. It also looks like it's bent a little bit in the slot area, which should be possible to repair probably.
Re the crack in the neck tenon, it can be repaired too. At worst case making a new tenon, but much more likely that the crack itself can be repaired. Actually filling with silver solder is one of the better options. It might be necessary to unsolder the tenon, fill with silver solder, then solder the tenon back (because of heat necessary as Tony mentioned above), or it might be possible to fill without unsoldering, since it's at the other end far from the soft solder joint (with something like a Little torch, heating fast just this area).
Re the crack in the neck tenon, it can be repaired too. At worst case making a new tenon, but much more likely that the crack itself can be repaired. Actually filling with silver solder is one of the better options. It might be necessary to unsolder the tenon, fill with silver solder, then solder the tenon back (because of heat necessary as Tony mentioned above), or it might be possible to fill without unsoldering, since it's at the other end far from the soft solder joint (with something like a Little torch, heating fast just this area).