During the overha...err, fixin'up of an old clarinet (<waves to Matthew>) I had to measure the dimension of a pivot screw and googled a bit around for its (not very metric) dimensions.
Now, what I found was that this thread pitch is commonly used for bicycle spokes, as is the diameter. Now, I often wonder why on earth a manufacturer would choose certain dimensions of parts over others (per the screws, why not Metrical, or standard Whitworth or Klingon or ...), and I am sure there is some "etymology" with industry standards as there is with words (think about the railroad track width).
As an engineer back then (and even more so today) I'd probably look into adapting readily available material, and one of those might have been bicycle spokes. They are threaded on one end, they are straightened, they have a suitable diameter, all that remains to do is to cut them to length, slot them on one end and shorten the threaded end as needed.
Now this would be a nice theory. In practice - has anyone ever used bike spokes to replace a kaputt rod in a sax or a clarinet? :-?
Now, what I found was that this thread pitch is commonly used for bicycle spokes, as is the diameter. Now, I often wonder why on earth a manufacturer would choose certain dimensions of parts over others (per the screws, why not Metrical, or standard Whitworth or Klingon or ...), and I am sure there is some "etymology" with industry standards as there is with words (think about the railroad track width).
As an engineer back then (and even more so today) I'd probably look into adapting readily available material, and one of those might have been bicycle spokes. They are threaded on one end, they are straightened, they have a suitable diameter, all that remains to do is to cut them to length, slot them on one end and shorten the threaded end as needed.
Now this would be a nice theory. In practice - has anyone ever used bike spokes to replace a kaputt rod in a sax or a clarinet? :-?