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Returning to Clarinet - but where next!!?

I am more or less a beginner on the bass clarinet, not having played woodwind (sop. clarinet) for several decades since my school days, but my dream to get my hands on a bass has recently come true. I am really enjoying it and the fingering is all coming back to me.

At this stage, I have only invested in an entry-level Chinese-made instrument, and I am trying to improve it in simple ways to make playing easier and more satisfying. A Rovner ligature and Fibracell reed have helped to some extent, but most advice pointed towards a better mouthpiece - so I acquired a hand-finished Vandoren B45 which looks beautiful, but
x**v@!! doesn't fit the Chinese neck. Yes I know, I should have checked earlier but was assured all tenons are the same size.
It's not a matter of the cork just being tight, the black rubber of the mouthpiece has a diameter of 29.42mm and the neck has an inner diameter of 28.94mm, so I cannot put the mouthpiece into it at all.

So, where to go from here? I want to use the nice mouthpiece. But I am also intending to upgrade the instrument after a year in any case. Is it advisable to have the mouthpiece reduced in size with new cork so that it fits and then resized again later on? Is it possible to buy a neck that would fit the Vandoren mouthpiece properly - assuming it would fit to the receiver of the upper section of the clarinet - or would that be a false investment? Or shall I just hang onto the mouthpiece until I upgrade and make sure it fits the new instrument. I say new, but it's more likely to be a secondhand Selmer or Buffet. Do those all take the same size mouthpiece?

Any advice or guidance would be most welcome.

 
Take the neck and mouthpiece to a good repair tech. It may be possible to expand the receiver portion of the neck using a "can opener" style expander the .5 mm necessary to allow the hard rubber portion of the mouthpiece to fit. If that doesn't work, it would be possible to put the mouthpiece on a mandrel in a lathe and take .5 mm off the the diameter of the portions above and below the cork. That amounts to only .25 mm added clearance on each side when used with a non Chinese "I.S.O." neck and will not negatively effect how the mouthpiece performs. The first solution though is the better of the two if it is possible considering the thickness and hardness of the metal and its plating.
 
Also, when trying mouthpieces out, I often borrow a friends until I find the one I like. For example, I have a box of 10 or so different makes of tenor sax mouthpieces. So when I was downsizing my sax collection, the new buyer could try out a number of mouthpieces until they found one they liked. Since I'm in a community band and run my own big band, I have lent, sold, and purchased a lot of mouthpieces this way. I have on at least one occasion helped a clarinetist, who was trying to add a tenor sax to her stable of instruments she can play, find a mouthpiece and tenor sax that allowed her to move to the next level. She was about to give up on on the tenor sax. There are a lot of good instructors who can help you select a decent mouthpiece too.
 
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