Skewed Tone Hole Beds

tictactux

tictactux

Distinguished Member
Distinguished Member
This was Baby Valkyrie's weekend. I cleaned her some weeks ago, ordered pads (kudos to MusicMedic for having thin 2mm pads) and set to repadding.
O.M.F.G. What do I see? (I no longer wonder why this instrument has no maker's marks nor serial number - must be a singleton, a one-off instrument). Nearly every tone hole is not perpendicular to the bore but leans forward or backward, like branches grow out of a tree's stem. Okay, no big deal, I can deal with that. Bitta glue, presto, works.

But what is that?
AskewToneHole.png

It's not only tilted, it's out of round, out of true, completely Out Of Rosenheim (if you get the reverence).

What would I do with a tone hole like this? I've seen stuff like that on saxes (drop it once, et voilà, there you got it) but not with wooden clarinets. I don't have the equipment to re-ream the tonehole beds, nor do I think it'd be worth it.
Any shortcuts to make it halfway playable and not leave a mess for generations of repairers after me?

Or, in other words, any takers? :)
 
1. You could send it to a repair tech who does have the necessary reamers to level just those toneholes that are the most uneven and/or

2. Order some Valentino synthetic pads from JL Smith. They come in different thicknesses and are very forgiving when used on clarinets with imperfect toneholes such as the old wooden Eb that you have.
 
First a question, where did you find 2.0mm pads from Music Medic and what type of pads are these? The thinnest I found are 2.5mm bladder pads. Did you mean 2.5mm and are these the pads you are talking about? If they are, I'm interested to know if they are consistent in thickness and also what thickness is just the felt (bigger diameter) part? I'm curious if either just one or both felt and back are thinner than their medium thickness pads (if you have any)?

I often check levelness of clarient tone holes even if they look level at first. I found that even more reputable companies, more likely with older clarinets, sometimes have some tone holes that are like that. Maybe not as much as your drawing but more than is possible for regular bladder pads to seal properly (without too much force).

For example some older Buffets (and probably some other companies too) have the C#/G# tone hole simply drilled in the body. No attempt to make a level surface, the top of the tone hole is the contour of the body! A normal pad would never seal.

If you can't level them then what you can do is either get soft pads to accomedate, like the ones jbtsax suggested, or you can remove the back e.g. from leather pads to make softer and more flexible pads. You then can simply rely on the pads being soft, or you can distort the pads in the pad cups more similar to the contour of the tone hole. I don't think reasonable quality bladder pads will be possible to accomedate this. Maybe you can make your own bladder pads without back.

You can build up the tone hole with one of the options, depending on situation: super glue, epoxy, super glue and wood dust, epoxy and wood dust, epoxy and reinforcement pins, maybe other options. Then using micromotor/dremel type tool and/or hand tools/files (whatever you have) to achieve a more level tone hole. If done by hand, check levelness with a leak light against a flat piece and file/sand where needed. I think even with hand files it would be possible to achieve a relatively decent tone hole, maybe not as good as it can be, but probably better than what your drawing shows. It can be a lot of work for the entire clarinet.

What I would most likely do is either with or without building up the tone hole, use a tone hole facing tool, or make one to the size/shape, or use a properly shaped boring cutter to level the tone hole. You might be able to make something like this yourself. The simplest way is to cut the internal taper and just glue sand paper to it, but you need more special tools for that probably (maybe you have them?).

I hope this helps.
 
clarnibass said:
First a question, where did you find 2.0mm pads from Music Medic and what type of pads are these? The thinnest I found are 2.5mm bladder pads. Did you mean 2.5mm and are these the pads you are talking about? If they are, I'm interested to know if they are consistent in thickness and also what thickness is just the felt (bigger diameter) part? I'm curious if either just one or both felt and back are thinner than their medium thickness pads (if you have any)?
Click to expand...
Yeah, it's 2.5mm, sorry for the confusion. The pads are very uniform in thickness (from the limited sample (less than 30 pads)). The shouldered part is about half the total thickness of the pad (i.e. 1.25mm), everything is just a tad thinner than with the regular pads. I think these are great for Eb sopranos, at least as long they don't have tone holes with funny shapes.
~~~~~~
As it is really one one hole that bad, I'll do it by hand. More important than properly shaped bedplaces is that the crown is level. Can't be any worse than now.
 
Oh..... I just made an order from Music Medic but didn't include any pads... didn't notice they have these newer ones... too bad... I've only tried the older (woven) bladder pads from them and didn't like them at all.
My source for thinner bladder pad is sometimes a bit difficult (minimum amount, but sometimes I only need a few) so the MM might be a good alternative. I'll check them out sometimes. Thanks for mentioning them.

Yes, absolutely agree that level is more important than either looks or the thickness of the tone hole rim. Eventhough I do have the tools to finish a tone hole exactly, I sometimes use "hand" tools (micromotor, hand files, nail files, random sanding bits).

BTW another "trick" that might help is to put a plug with non-gluable teflon on it inside the tone hole while building it up with glue.
 
It may be that older clarinets had the tone holes formed by "custom" designed in-house "fly cutters" in their own shops that were manually applied to the joint, while modern manufacturing uses a more precise method (cutters applied to the joint by an integrated machine.

When I had to have special pads created for my Oehler, my repairman/craftsman just made cork pads for the offending tone holes, then sanded them to the proper thickness. That approach worked just fine for my instrument.
 
With much patience and trial and error, is there any possibility of putting a cork pad in, then custom sanding it to fit the contours of the tone hole as is? (ie pad and fit key, light pressure to show first impression on tone hole on cork - sand that area down to shape, refit and repeat)

Might be a first, least destructive, work around though might take a number of goes.

Chris
 
Chris J said:
With much patience and trial and error, is there any possibility of putting a cork pad in, then custom sanding it to fit the contours of the tone hole as is? (ie pad and fit key, light pressure to show first impression on tone hole on cork - sand that area down to shape, refit and repeat)

Might be a first, least destructive, work around though might take a number of goes.

Chris
Click to expand...

Thanks, I gave the cork pad a couple thoughts. Problem is, not only is the tone hole severely out of quite everything, its crown is also chipped and jagged. A cork pad doesn't like jagged tone hole rims.
I will try to flatten it as good as possible with my micromotor and some sanding discs. I don't plan to go berserk with it - just get that wee bit of edge off.
 
clarnibass said:
I guess I'm a bit of a fanatic of using a micromotor for repairs, I'm curious what brand/model is yours? Just curious what micromotors others are using when I find someone else who is using it (very few do, surprising to me).
Click to expand...
To be honest, it's more of a macromotor, ie a Dremel do-alike handheld. I couldn't figure out a generic term for these, so I say "micromotor" and everyone knows I'm not using a Hilti hammer drill. :cool:
 
I see, thanks. Sorry to be pedantic, but I am pedantic about this :)
Micromotor is actually pretty specific, it is a dental micromotor, the same thing dental technicians use. Similar in some ways but significantly different from the dremels, flexible shaft rotary tools, pendant drills, etc. There are also many variations in micromotors...[/pedant]

The bottom photo on my 'shop tour' page shows my micromotor www.nitailevi.com/shonot/shop_tour/shop_tour.htm
 
clarnibass said:
Micromotor is actually pretty specific, it is a dental micromotor, the same thing dental technicians use.
Click to expand...
"Micromotor" does not scream "dental". There are "dental micromotors", but that's a specific kind of mm. Other types are used for engraving, mani/pedicure, model making, ...
The micromotor as such is just a small brushless DC motor. Technically the vibrator in your cellular phone is a micromotor as well.
Similar in some ways but significantly different from the dremels, flexible shaft rotary tools, pendant drills, etc. There are also many variations in micromotors...
Click to expand...
Hmm. It's small, it rotates...I fail to see the significant differences. The handling is comfier than with a flex shaft, but that's about it. :confused:
 
I see. I guess I'll refer to it as a 'dental miucromotor' from now on so it's clearer. Locally I've never heard anyone say micromotor for anything other than the dental micromotor, but I guess that's because people in the dental industry borrowed the English term and no one else uses it for anything else (they'd use a local term).

The most obvious different is that in a dremel, flexible shaft, etc. the motor isn't 'micro' and much bigger than with a micromotor. There are many more significant differences in what is possible to do, precision, comfort, etc. I found most of them when I was trying the different types. Maybe I'll start a new thread about it, I wrote one on another forum so will find it and post it here sometime.
 
clarnibass said:
I see, thanks. Sorry to be pedantic, but I am pedantic about this
Click to expand...

Thanks for that new word to add to my vocabulary. I no longer have to refer to myself as "anal retentive" or "obsessive-compulsive". I can now just tell others that I am merely "pedantic". (I may admit to being "pedantic", but I am not "pedestrian" in any sense of the word.)


Back to the topic: Has anyone else used Valentino or Omnipads on older wooden clarinets with less than perfect toneholes? I'd like to know what others think who have tried them.
 
clarnibass said:
...There are many more significant differences in what is possible to do, precision, comfort, etc. I found most of them when I was trying the different types. Maybe I'll start a new thread about it, I wrote one on another forum so will find it and post it here sometime.
Click to expand...
Please do as this is a nice peek into the world of the technical craftsman.
 
jbtsax said:
Thanks for that new word to add to my vocabulary. I no longer have to refer to myself as "anal retentive" or "obsessive-compulsive". I can now just tell others that I am merely "pedantic". (I may admit to being "pedantic", but I am not "pedestrian" in any sense of the word.)
Click to expand...
Nabbed for today's status on Facebook with pointback to this forum. Thanks John, it just made me laugh. :cool:
 
interesting.

All the Dental "motors" around here are basically air tools. The handsets are air driven and the compressor are more reliable and supply a high quality air supply to let the handtool operate at significantly higher rpms than mechanical driven tools. They have no flexible shaft like a dremel tool, just a fancy looking air hose and costly connector.
 
jbtsax said:
Back to the topic: Has anyone else used Valentino or Omnipads on older wooden clarinets with less than perfect toneholes? I'd like to know what others think who have tried them.
Click to expand...

regular Valentinos are good for that, but then I prefer to fix the tonehole too as most of the clarinets I work on are professional grade, even though they may have been professional 60 yrs ago ...

If needed, i use the Ferree's toneholes cutters and burr removers tools etc. I may build up a damaged tonehole first a bit then cut it down. Also the option of replacing it with a plug, but one still have to cut the shape.

I should also mention, if i cut down a tonehole I may reshape the cavity slightly to take into account better venting from a, even if very slight, deeper location of the pad/keycup itself. It all depends.
 
Last edited:
Thanks for that response. I agree entirely with that approach. In my experience a customer would bring in an old Normandy that they wanted to make playable again, but they were on a budget. It was these cases that the valentinos came in handy.

What is your experience with the effect upon intonation of cutting the top of the tonehole and making the tonehole more shallow?
 
jbtsax said:
What is your experience with the effect upon intonation of cutting the top of the tonehole and making the tonehole more shallow?
Click to expand...
Aaah, now it's getting interesting, as I am about to do the same, just to gain some more 'clearing' when the pad is open.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom