The alto clarinet project and what to do with a pair of Preufer soprano clarinets?

wanabe

I have a pair of Preufer Albert systen clarinets that I bought thinking that they were Boehm system. I just wanted something to learn on. Remember, I'm the newbie that doesn't know anything about clarinets. O.K., so what do I do with them? I could try to sell them and could probably get what I paid for them, which was next to nothing because nowI find out that they are worth next to nothing. But here ios the catch. I just love Dixieland Jazz. Yes I kinow that a lot of people, if not nearly all, play Dixieland on Boehm system horns, but what the heck, as long as I have them why let them go to waste. Corks and pads for the two of these will run me about $70, which, as is more than I paid for the two of them. So what do you think, is it worth it or should I just relegate these two to the " I'll getn around to them someday pile of stuff"?

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, I'm in the process of reconditioning (?) a Bundy alto clarinet, mainly just because I like to tinker with things. That project is going pretty well. I have disassembled, cleaned and repaded all of the keys, cleaned the body and the metal parts am ready to reattach the keys to the body. I am still looking for a decent bell for it right now. The bell itself is just fine with only one small dent in it, but the bell bow is a disaster. It closely resembles a flat tire. Does anyone out there have a spare alto clarinet bell?
 
eBay is the place to go for horn parts, and there are enough Bundy horns out there that go through the salvage process that you should be able to land another bell or two. However, since alto clarinets are almost exclusively school property, most of what you find will be beaten all to crap. Such is life with harmony clarinets.

A good repair shop that deals in brass instruments should be able to do a halfway decent job of de-denting a harmony clarinet bell. Of course, the finish may suffer, but the acoustics should be just fine.

As for the Albert horns...

"Albert system" instruments are a relatively hard sell in the world of Klose/Boehm and Oehler system instruments. Once quite common, they now have faded into the obscurity reserved for alto clarinets - thus, a pair of Albert clarinets are going to appeal to a very limited Venn diagram segment (the set of clarinet players/who are interested in repairing instruments/who are interested in clarinets/who are interested in playing an Albert horn).

However, all is not completely lost. Albert horns have been popular with jazz clarinetists for many years - Woody Allen actually commissioned the production of a new Albert system instrument from the Selmer Corporation a number of years back. Most, of course, use the old horns - I myself have a decent Albert soprano, and a passable Albert bass, both considerably older than I am.

You could still use an Albert clarinet for jazz. They are marginally easier to play in sharp keys (and marginally less easy to play in flat keys, for that matter), so that should work in your favor.

However, you still have the issues of funk. That said, it would make for an interesting project, and if one is sacrificed to restore the other, the clarinet world could probably stand the loss.

If nothing else, you will have a very unique instrument. About the only way to top it, clarinet wise, would be if you had an all-metal Albert system bass clarinet in working order.
 
It would indeed be a unique instrument if I combined the two into one, especially considering that one is Bb and the oither is in A. Sacrificing one to build the other would not be necessary, unless I make a real blunder. All of the keys are present and working. There are no cracks in the wood with one exception. One of the barrels, there are three and all of different lengths.One has a crack in it that though it appears on both the inside and the outside and is full length, the barrel is still air tight. Go figure. The longest one is marked G. Preufer and my micrometer says that it is 73 mm long. The middle sized one is 70mm long and is also marked G. Preufer. The shortest one, the one with the crack, is marked and I can barely make out part of the name what I can see is "uffet" and I asume that it is a Buffet. It is 65 mm long. Did I mention that I have no idea about which of these go with which clarinet or why there are three of them?

Oh yes, I have ben cruising E-Bayfor weeks now and have not found any alto clarinet bells. I have found bells for everything from churches to bass clarinets, but no altos.
 
Alto bells are difficult to find. On the other hand, hammering that piece back into shape is not all that difficult, especially if cosmetics are a minor issue - you know, you just can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.

Per the clarinets - if you have a PAIR of the SAME brand, they're worth considerably more than singles - each one alone would be just the odd orphan, but with two, hey, here we're talking family. :)
Next step would be to find or make a suitable double case, but by all means, keep them.
If you haven't got the time to fix 'em now, just loosen all screws a wee bit and oil them so that they won't be rusted or frozen solid when you finally find the time to attend to them.
 
Ben thanks for the reply. I already have the double case for them. The double case that came with them was just too funky. My wife refused to allow it in the house, so I bought an Alora double case. I really like it. So here is what I'm thinking now. In that I have two that are at least very similar if not identical, I can take them apart one at a time and use the second one as a pattern to reassemble the first one.That's what I'm doing with the altos. I have two complete altos and the complete body of a third and so far, so good. I do have an offer from a repair shop to hammer out the bow of the dented alto for a total of $120, but heck that's more than I paid for the whole horn! I don't know how much luck I'll have, but I am going to try to find two pieces of pipe. One will need to have an inside diameter very close to the outside diameter of the bow. I can use that as an anvil. The other will need to have an outside diameter very close to the inside diameter of the bow. I can then cut the pipes lengthwise and to a useful length and then I can use them to form the bow the bow back into something close to round. It is fortunate that the bow has a constant diameter and I'll only need one set. But then I'm back to an original question. Is the bell secured to the bow with an adhesive or is it soldered? either way, I can get it apart, but getting it back together may be a problem, especially if it is silver soldered. I have the proper torch to break the joint and solder with but I don't know how to solder with a torch. Hmmmmm. Maybe I'll hire a plumber to do it ;)
 
!!!UPDATE AND NEWS FLASH!!!

I just couldn't stand it anymore so I grabbed the malformed bell assembly by the throat, dragged it out to the workshop and began torturing it with an acetyene torch. The bad news is that yes, it is soldered on. The good news is that it isn't nearly as difficult to do this as I thought it would be. I removed the bell and using a hammer and the head of a carriage bolt, beat the hel...., I mean gently reformed the bow into what will pass as being round and remounted it. It was suprisingly easy to do. Now all that is left to do is finish the last few key corks and the tenon corks and put the keys back on. But, I dread once more working with that body with all of the keys removed. It’s like trying to handle a porcupine that realy, realy wants to hurt you.
 
That's the spirit!
(When doing metal hammering, I try to use a wooden "anvil" (eg axe or hammer handle, old table leg) whenever possible. But hey, it worked)

You haven't made any pictures, before and after, have you?
 
I'm sorry, I didn't see the mention about the Bb/A nature of the pair.

If you haven't been slashed by a needle spring at one point in your life, you haven't ever done instrument repair. Just go at it slow, pay attention to each post when you grasp the body in any way, and you should do just fine.
 
The photos

Here are two "befores"

IMG_20140108_135901.jpgIMG_20140108_135913.jpg

Here is the "after"

IMG_20140108_140005.jpg

tictactux said:
That's the spirit!
(When doing metal hammering, I try to use a wooden "anvil" (eg axe or hammer handle, old table leg) whenever possible. But hey, it worked)

You haven't made any pictures, before and after, have you?
Click to expand...
 
This is an OLD thread, but another way you can try and fix that, is do what we do in the RC world, especially with Pipes, we fill em with water and freeze em, the freezing expands the metal to almost perfect shape. If you could find a way to remove the pads and seal everything then fill with water, let it freeze over night, then let it thaw when finished.
 
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