Care products & Tips

A woodwind instrument’s lifespan depends strongly on the player’s meticulous care, as well as the professional maintenance at the workshop. To limit, or even avoid damage to your instrument, we have compiled a few helpful tips. In our clarinet hacks section, we have also uploaded some videos on how to properly care for your instrument. Please don’t hesitate to contact us, should you have any further questions.

How to break in your new instrument

To ensure that the instrument can be assembled using as little pressure as possible, it is necessary to regularly apply cork grease to the tenon corks. In the first eight to ten days, the instrument should only be played for a short amount of time, to allow for the wood to adapt to the now occurring load. After playing, the instrument must be disassembled and the inner bore carefully wiped out. Any water which might have collected around the socket must be wiped away with a soft cloth as well. Please, leave your etui lid open for a while to allow for the wooden bore to dry completely.

Properly storing your mouthpiece

Hard rubber mouthpieces may lead the silver-plated keys and rings to chemically react and tarnish. Therefore, please store your hard rubber mouthpiece separately, especially in the beginning. If you would like to leave it in the casing with the rest of your instrument, please seal it in an airtight plastic bag to avoid any tarnishing. This particular problem ceases with regular usage.

Applying oil to your instrument

The bore, barrel, the upper and lower joint, as well as the sockets’ and tenons’ end grain wood should be periodically (e.g. every three weeks) thinly coated in linseed oil.

This should best be done before, but at the latest, when the bore’s wooden surface turns greyish. After playing, you need to wait at least four hours before you are able to oil your instrument, as the bore needs to be completely dry. If the instrument hasn’t been played for a longer period of time, the oil can be applied ahead of playing.

To oil the instrument, you can use an old silken swabbing rod. Apply a few drops of oil to the rod and coat the bore thinly and evenly. Cotton swabs can be used for the end grain wood.

Please don’t let the oil come into contact with the pads, as it renders them useless!
(Jochen Seggelke explains the reasoning behind this in the first episode of clarinet hacks.)

Polishing the mechanic parts

After playing, the silver-plated mechanic parts need to be thoroughly cleaned with a soft cotton cloth, as the sweat from your palm which contains small amounts of acid, can corrode the silver-plating. For further polishing you can use a silver cleaning cloth.

To remove any dust from in between the mechanic parts, you can use a soft, clean cosmetic brush. All movable mechanic pieces are hinged with steel screws. A few drops of acid free key oil every 5 to 6 months ensure their movability. Again, please make sure to not let the oil come into contact with the pads!

Wood treatment and possible cracking

Even a woodwind instrument that has been made and played in, using the utmost possible care, can crack. This can happen for a multitude of reasons. Mostly, however, it comes down to the fact that wood ‘lives’, as long as you keep it that way. To keep a woodwind instrument’s sound optimal, it is necessary to include the material in the vibration process.
There are different forces acting on the corpus material at the same time:

The air humidity (or lack thereof) and room temperature
The player’s breathing air which condenses in the instrument, as it is warmer and more humid than the surrounding air
The vibration of the air column, and therefore the body’s vibration
The key mechanism, especially the post which are located in the corpus

Would the sound play a minor role for the instrument, the wood could be denatured to remain almost neutral – like plastic. This can be achieved by filling the xylems with resin and oils which are being worked into the wood using vacuum. Oil baths over a longer period of time can seal the pores completely. Painting the inside, as well as the outside of the wood can stop humidity from entering entirely. The surface of a wooden corpus which has been processed this way, doesn’t affect the tone colour.

We at SCHWENK & SEGGELKE, however, do want the material to affect the tone colour and therefore process our longstanding, naturally dried resonant wood with open pores. The condensation which occurs on the slightly coarse inner bore, does hardly resemble lakes, but rather little drops, comparable to the lotus effect. This effect makes it possible for the inner volume to remain the same during longer blowing periods, while giving off the absorbed humidity in its idle mode – it can breathe!

With increasing age, the wood’s amplitude of swelling and shrinking decreases. Regular application of linseed oil helps to prevent the wood from leaching. This is especially important in the first couple of weeks after buying a new instrument (4-6 weeks, when played regularly). Should the wood still crack, there are a few things you can do to fix this problem. Usually, degreasing the crack and filling it with cyanoacrylate and wood flour suffices. To repair cracked tone holes, hard rubber inserts can be used. The tightness of their instrument is the player’s priority. As long as that is given, he doesn’t have to fear a lack of resonance in the sound. In case of larger cracks appearing in more problematic places, replacing the whole cracked corpus joint is the most sensible thing to do. The old joint’s mechanic parts can then be transferred to the new one. Afterwards it is necessary to give the instrument time to re-adjust. With our chosen form of wood treatment, we are aiming for the optimal compromise between sound and durability.

Tips for the colder months

After a long, beautiful summer which was rather unproblematic for your instrument’s wood, the heating period and the transition from warm and dry room temperature, to cold outdoor temperature, possibly under 10 degrees Celsius etc., is a challenge for the clarinet’s corpus.
Help preserve your instrument’s value by following a few simple steps:

Before playing, let the upper joint and the barrel warm thoroughly, by applying warmth from the outside. Don’t try to warm it, by blowing air through it. Warm, moist breath quickly condensates in a cold corpus.
After the initial 10 minutes, use the swabbing rod to wipe out the moisture. Focus especially on the barrel and the upper joint, as this is the area where the largest amount of condensation occurs.
After playing, disassemble the instrument and remove the moisture from the bore and tone holes by blowing air through them. We also recommend to clamp filter paper (e.g. coffee or cigarette filter paper) between pad and tone hole, thereby letting the corpus dry slowly and preventing a moisture build-up around the tone hole.
Wrapping your instrument casing in e. g. an additional towel during the colder months of the year, helps to reduce the risks of mechanical malfunctions (e.g. the keys getting stuck).
Avoid storing your instrument in proximity to radiators.
As a general rule: After playing, open the keys and put your dissembled instrument back in its casing.

If you follow these steps carefully, your beloved instrument will survive the colder months of the year in great condition and without any damage!

Should you have any questions or special requirements,
please don’t hesitate to contact us!