peculiarities of (older?) German clarinets

[tictactux]

Got an older Uebel for a repad. Did the Right Thing, measured pad cups and ordered from MusicMedic.

Thankfully I ordered the thin pads... I had it with an unknown German Eefer, and I had it with that one as well - those Teutonic Tootlers don't like shouldered pads. Their tone hole cutouts are just a wee bit larger than the pad cups, and the pad cups rims are parallel to the tonehole beds only when they're as good as closed (maybe 1/2 mm open).
So, order 1/2 mm smaller than for a Boehm clarinet, and order the thinnest you can get, or go for leather or unshouldered synthetic pads.

Of course, when you're doing that professionally, you got pads galore, and probably already know.

One should not curse on Good Friday...well...I did.

 

[SOTSDO]

I've toyed with the idea of replacing the kidskin leather pads on my Oehler with thinner pads common to the Boehm practice. I feel that the leather, without any evidence one way or the other, "muffles" the tone of the instrument.

I have already had the vent key pads redone with cork pads sanded to the correct thickness. The originals were holding the rings to which they were attached far too "proud" of the tone hole chimneys, with squeakaliffic results when paired with my fat fingers. It took the now-deceased Fred Freeman a good four hours to get them right, but it made a world of difference.

 

[clarnibass]

For stepped pads, it sounds like as long as the outer diameter (outer as in out of the pad cup) of the pad is not bigger than the pad cup itself, no problem. What size pad would fit also depends on the shape of the step and the difference in diameter of the felt and back which can vary from square to tapered.

The thickess is also a bit different between stepped and non-stepped pads. It is mostly the felt thickness (i.e. the outside) that really matters with stepped pads. Since this leans against the key cup rim, this will determine the thickness of the pad in comparison with the key cup. The back won't matter as long as it's not too thick, which can happen, but so far I haven't found a stepped pad with a back too thick for any cup I've needed it for.

Some clarinets have thin/short key cup rims and I guess some pads might have a thicker back (especially since you can special order any thickness pretty much). I've seen supposedly thinner pads where mostly the back was thinner, with the felt being more or less the same, which didn't help. I consider that specifying both back and felt thickness for stepped pads is important. The shape of the step will matter here too but this is best to find by experience with a certain model.

The keys you describe seem to need 0.5mm felt thickness for stepped pads. Thin stepped pads usually have a felt thickness of about 1mm. So I wouldn't probably either use the thinnest stepped pads and align key cups, or non-stepped pads of correct thickness and probably less aligning of key cups necessary. Whatever I thought worked better (probably the latter).

 

[tictactux]

Yeah, the thickness of the step was the main problem - I ended up using white unstepped synthetic pads, they were installed in a couple of minutes and look and feel just right.
In a compartment of the case there were some (apparently original) replacement leather pads - never in my life I've seen so squishy pads; I'd believe they were designed to be compressing into shape after installation. They'd easily give in a millimeter when slightly pinched between thumb and index finger...