Try the reverse: My understanding is that the oil is intended to keep water out of the wood, not to keep the wood from drying out. If that is true, a surface coating of oil should provide a great moisture barrier. So, cut one in half and oil one half. Drop both in water, and then see if the oil protects it or not.
I would suggest a better experiment would be with a very precise scale, weigh a dry barrel, soak it in oil, wipe off the excess and weigh it again. Seven months is a long time and if it soaked the whole way through you wouldn't get the ring like that piece of chalk. Also, sanding it could have filled the endgrain with dust or the heat generated in the cutting/sanding process could have burnt off the oil. As a technician, I can tell you they definitely change dimensions when they are dry verses oiled. Another good test would to measure it with a dial or digital caliper or a micrometer dry vs oiled.
Had a really old dry Pre-R13 Buffet that played extremely flat. I assumed it had to have been very warped including the tone holes. I caked it in Bore Oil for a month and added oil when I saw some had dried up or sucked in to the pores? I reassembled the instrument and tried a shorter barrel about 3mm smaller than the first and intonation became much more controlled and accurate. Oiling your clarinet is good and if you notice that the rings on the tenons or on the bell are loose, that means the wood has constricted or shrank. Meaning it’s dehydrated. Oil that sucka
My repairwoman used to do a test to see if the wood was "thirsty": she'd put a small swipe of bore oil (almond, parafin, and orange extract) on the outside with a cotton swab, and wait a minute. If it was dry, the oil would be virtually gone by the end. Maybe just superficial absorption, but some of it did seem to penetrate the wood.
That commercial bore oil is not a light oil, in fact more like mineral oil. I've done experiments weighing before and after soaking in 80% almond oil and 20% orange terpene. The weight gain of the various parts is significant. Especially for those manufacturers that don't finish their bore with a shellac/oil finish. So yes if you use an inappropriate oil - it won't soak in. The lack of a control barrel also means we may be looking at wood in which the oil has permeated all of the wood completely. Don't mean to rain on the parade, but this is not definitive, nor scientific. Disagree!
Does bore oil help anything then? Because in my clarinet circles the power of bore oil is rarely questioned and now I feel confused, have I wasted hours disassembling and assembling my instrument when I was oiling it?
My own belief is yes. Talk to a piccolo player. They swear by it. But the whole topic is subjective (what we hear) kind of like tubes vs transistors in a stereo. However, there are few people who work with wood that would advocate against oiling wood vs leaving it dry.
Years ago a man with 20 years of experience in working on woodwind instruments visibly cringed when I told him I've never oiled my clarinet before. I do it now because of the face he made that day but I never really thought about how well it works.
Weight gain is the only accurate way of telling if the oil has been absorbed. The degree of gain indicates the volume of oil absorbed. Also - most commercial bore oils are petroleum based. They are hydrophobic and will not be absorbed. Nut oils are hydrophylic and will be absorbed.
People add things like orange terpene to help the oil penetrate. This may be what you are thinking. There is not enough of a trade in bore oil to have manufacturers trying to scam for more usage.
I know it would have cost more, but why didn't you saw another barrel in half to show the difference? It would have made your point a bit stronger, though I'll happily take your word for it.
hundidosplodo True, though I guess you could argue that if you saw the barrel in half prior to the oil bath, then the barrel would behave differently to how it does normally, as the surface area, where the barrel was sawn(correct form?) has a different texture to the barrel as a whole, which would screw up the results, because that exact area is where you measure them. Also, my reasoning for stating what I did initially, since he plunged the barrel into the oil half a year ago, I figure the easier fix would be to use a fresh barrel as a comparison rather than having to wait a "whole" half year again.
Well, if NOTHING can be seen, there is absolutely NO need to compare with other cut pieces (where also nothing can be seen) except you have developped some hate against your instrument, then saw it in 78 pieces at least. At your own risk. Be careful to remove all metal pieces before. Don't do it at home, kids! If you ask any professional wood worker, he'll tell you that oil will NEVER go completely through a piece of wood (even if you add high pressure and higher temperature, and even in much much softer wood as pine wood) Oil only intrudes about a tiny fraction of an inch. And therefore, if you cut the wood afterwards, you would defenitely see the difference in the color between the (possible) oil soaked part and the "normal" wood.
Okay try this. On a junker top joint wash it thoroughly and rinse and warm water. What you'll find is the wood looks terrible Dusty dry. You may wonder why did I do something so foolish? Next Jam a couple of cotton balls in the very top of the top joint. Next Step being careful not to spill p o u r bore oil to totally saturate that cotton ball. Put it in its case and wait a couple weeks. By this time the Wood will have turned dark on the outside of the top joint probably halfway down proving that the oil does penetrate. In fact if you use the lousy low viscosity stuff they sell as bore oil heavily you will in time see the oil escaping the pores on the outside of the clarinet. Another benefit of oiling aside from crack prevention is that a dramatically reduces the amount of water Gathering on the C sharp and E flat Keys on the right side of the top joint. I find the reduction of water in those keys well worth the oiling. All that said... If you keep the instrument in its case with stable humidity and avoid sudden temperature changes it probably won't crack. Another important detail is to put cork grease on the end-grain of the top joint cuz this is where a lot of water enters and hence why they crack near this area. Last and certainly not least another downside of oiling the bore of your instrument is that if you use Valentino synthetic pads the sealing surface is held to the rest of the pad buy a wholly inadequate adhesive. If you get any oil... Any oil at all on the pad it will disintegrate... Usually 5 seconds before your big solo. For the record I do oil my instruments and in 40 years I've had zero cracks.
That same thing happened to me with one of my Valentino pads. The nice thing is it seems like the inner layers of the pad still give you a good enough seal to get through that solo before you take it in to get it repaired. Oh, and thanks again for that :)
My tech says there's no need to oil. My clarinet prof never mentioned oiling either. When I was working as a tech apprentice (under someone else, who didn't do much pro work), they did have me oiling student model wood rentals using olive oil when doing a recondition(all keys off).
yes, I would like to see a controlled exp with dyed almond oil on pine and structural hardwood. Nb while cutting the barrel, notice the smoke/mist created. Much the same as when squeezing the last remaining oil into the square jar.
My first reaction on watching this was that maybe the purpose of the oil isn't so much to soak into the wood as to provide a light protective layer to repel the saliva.....but then I wondered, if the oil doesn't actually soak into the wood, why would the saliva?
There is no saliva in the clarinet or any other wind instrument for that matter. The instrument is wet after a playing session from water vapor in the player breath condenses when it gets colder inside the instrument.
You know what would probably help the interior is wax. Like if you took some very soft rope, something like cotton, natural fiber. And if you soaked that or rubbed it on bees wax to get it worked into the fibers, and then you drew that through the instrument, that should provide a water barrier (much like protecting chapped lips). It would also not react with the wood like polyurethane or shellac would.
I have had my Selmer Paris Series 9* since 1963 when I was 1st Chair Clarinet in high school band (also a member of First Chair Of America) I have NEVER oiled the bore and the whole clarinet looks and plays as good as it did 56 years ago and the bore is as shiny as Henry Selmer Inc made it in 1963. I am also a wood turner and have made many bowls, pens, knife scales, etc. from Cocobolo, African Blackwood, Ebony, and other super hard oily woods. I, and my clarinet, have lived most of our lives in Florida (warm humid climate) and last 20 years in North Carolina (warm humid climate). Obviously this was not a scientific test by a long shot but I think other factors like dry and cold climates play a much larger factor in wood instruments cracking than oiling the bores. I'll never forget the story that a famous classical guitarist told of her first guitar. The family moved from the moist climate of Spain to the super dry climate of the mid-west when they hung the guitar over the door and in a day or two the guitar looked like a pretzel.
I mean it doesn't have to soak into the instrument to protect the wood from moisture, and you can visibly see that the oil will coat the surface of dry looking areas. If anything this dispells the myth that bore oil will significantly alter the acoustic properties of the wood by going too deep.
The general wisdom in carpentry is to not oil dalbergia woods(cocobolo, rosewood, grenadilla) because 1 they are already very oily and 2 they contain a chemical that stops oil from curing properly.
The oil does penetrate I just oiled my barrel an it took lot of oil . You need to apply super extra thin layers of oil , I fist apply a thin layer then when it’s all penetrated inside the wood I oil it again with another thin layer and so on until the wood stop taking the oil I keep adding layers , immersing the whole thing won’t make any oil penetrate .
Could you make a video (if you haven't already, I couldn't find anything on your channel about it) about what you do to warm up your clarinet if it gets cold? I have a technique that I use, but I don't know how effective it is, especially since my method focuses on warming it up externally.
Weather in Georgia really doesn’t help, really hot during the summer, mild in the spring and fall, and bitter cold in the winter. Always something new to worry about.
Hey and I just thought of one more thing. I think you showed that the wood doesn't readily absorb oil. However, some oils like linseed oil can polymerize and form a protective barrier. It wouldn't work it's way into the wood, but it would form a thin film on top of the wood. When oils like linseed, olive, and other non petroleum based oils are exposed to air and light, they don't really "dry" but they do become solidified. This is how oil based paints cure. The process requires sunlight though and it takes days or weeks to set. So you would need to expose it to UV light inside the barrel and not use the instrument for a week or more. To get an idea of what this film is like, it's the reason why seasoning cast iron works. The older the pan is, and the more it's seasoned, the more non stick and water proof it becomes. Because the oil just lays down layer after layer of polymerized solids.
Bore oil does work and I'm not in the bore oil business. A better experiment would be to make a side by side comparison with a barrel unoiled and oiled. The weight and thickness of the oil must be light enough to absorb, and a delivery agent like turpentine or varsol is needed as well so it can absorb easily. It has made a big difference on my professional bassoon over the years, but I admit the maple in a bassoon is far more porous than blackwood.
Proposed Analysis For Determining If, And How Much, Bore Oil Will Absorb Into Wood Clarinet Material I recommend and offer an analysis approach that, I think, addresses some of the comments that have been made to date for this video and that I would I recommend and prefer to see completed by someone in the future. I believe the approach I describe below would be more definitive about if, and how much of, the bore oil is absorbed into the wood. Comments on my proposed approach are welcome. One day, someone might pursue this analysis again. At present, I am not able to complete the analysis myself. Also, this proposed analysis only attempts to determine if bore oil is, or is not, absorbed into the wood. It does not establish (a) if oiling the bore reduces the risks of cracking, (b) how much bore oil is absorbed into the wood during a normal swab-with-bore-oil approach (no immersion) or (c) if types of bore oil other than the typed used for the analysis will or will not absorb into the wood. Proposed Analysis For Determining If, And How Much, Bore Oil Will Absorb Into Wood Clarinet Material: a) Cut Multiple Similar Rings - Cut a barrel into six "ring" type pieces, each cut perpendicular to the bore and each piece as similar in thickness to each other as possible (about 8 mm thick). Cut the pieces with a thin, fine tooth, hand saw with as little blade speed and friction as possible so as to minimize heat-alteration of the wood surface that the sides of the blade teeth rub against. A miter box would help achieve consistently parallel cuts. b) Apply Indentification Codes To Rings - Apply a distinct identification number/code to each ring that will not be modified when the ring is immersed on bore oil. Perhaps this could be done by filing one to six shallow grooves into an edge with a different number of grooves for each ring. c) Stabilize Moisture Content In Rings - Place all code-marked rings together in an airtight container such as a plastic zip-close sandwich bag and allow their relative moisture content to stabilize and equalize among all six rings. I suspect a month of such stabilization in the air-tight container would be sufficient. d) Precisely Weigh Rings - Remove the rings from the air-tight container and immediately weigh each ring with a very precise scale that has a resolution about 1 microgram or less. I anticipate each ring will have a weight (with or without oil) of about 5 grams. I anticipate that, if bore oil is absorbed into the wood, the weight of the absorbed oil will likely be no more than 5 to 50 micrograms. Record the precise, exact weight of each ring. e) Put Rings To Respective Sealed Containers - Immediately after weighing all ring, (1) return three of the rings to the air-tight container and (2) immerse the other three rings in a small, sealed container of bore oil with the ends of all three rings in contact with the bore oil. f) Wait For Bore Oil Absorption - Allow the bore-oil-immersed rings to remain in the bore oil for a sufficient period of time. I anticipate no more than one to three months is needed for the rings to absorb as much bore oil as they can. g) Remove Surface Bore Oil And Weigh Again - After the immersion period, remove the bore-oil-immersed rings from the bore oil and, using a lint-free cloth and tissue paper, wipe off as much of the bore oil remaining on the surface as possible and not stopping until no more bore oil can be transferred from the ring to the lint-free cloth and tissue paper - determined by viewing the surface of the tissue paper. Then immediately weigh these three rings. h) Weigh Non-Immersed Rings Again - Remove the non-immersed rings from their air-tight container and immediately weigh them again. i) Compare First And Second Weights Of Non-Immersed Rings - Compare the first individual and combined weight of the non-immersed to the, later, subsequent individual and combined weights. They should, of course, be extremely close, if not exactly matching as precisely as the scale can resolve. Any variation raises questions about the repeatability and other variability in the scale or ring weighting technique. j) Compare First And Second Weights Of Immersed Rings - Compare the pre-immersion and post-immersion weights of the bore-oil-immersed rings, both individual and combined weights. Calculate the percentage change of weight for each individual ring and of the combined weight for the immersed rings. Percent-Change = [(weight after immersion) - (weight before immersion)]/[100 x (weight before immersion)] I would conclude that a percentage change of positive 0.1 or more would be a fair indication that the rings absorbed bore oil. Steven
I had never heard of bore oil until late in college. Part of me does wish I'd used it because my clarinet of 12 years did crack all the way though last summer, after I'd moved to a drier climate. Just to know it wasn't totally my fault...but it probably was.
I purchased my Buffet R13 Prestige in 1991. I did the whole oil routine in the beginning but have since lagged (10 years at a time). I can tell you this, when I put oil on my precious baby and let it sit...nothing happens. It does not "soak in" in the least. I recently took a hiatus for four years and came back to my clarinet. I oiled it, "just to be sure" and the oil just sat on it. I tend to agree with Mike here.😎
So it might be the climate you are in that causes your clarinets not to crack. From my experience, cold dry weather is often the time for cracking clarinets. An easy way to prevent this is to use a violin or viola little strip thing whatever they are called. Viola are a little more effective bc they are bigger. Whether it does much who knows, but it’s a fact that clarinets indeed crack and this seems to work, and you don’t have to be like “man gotta oil my clarinet today...” it’s just a little thing that can go in your case and u don’t really gotta think about it then.
Where's your control (i.e, barrel left non-bore oiled)? Even so, for less dense woods like Rosewood, I highly recommend bore oiling, just to make sure the wood seals (i.e, doesn't breath). Just my opinion and I'm just an amateur clarinet tooter. lol :)
I have a piece I would absolutely love for you to play on Bass clarinet, Clarinet, ( and I believe there is a EEb Contra-alto part) but what I would like to hear is Trittico-Vaclav Nelhybel, it has great parts for the clarinets and in my opinion is a fantastic and quite challenging piece of music. 😀😀
The cutting generates very hight temperature that will vaporizer and burn the old. I hope that isn't the case because I never oilmy oboes and they are just fine 😀
(Edited: I wrote this before seeing the other comments, so there is some overlap) Man, you rock, but not sure about your testing here. You might be right, but if so, my assumptions about what I observe myself must have another explanation for the disappearing oil. Did you accurately weigh before/after as that would be a much better test? You used a "new" piece to test, not one that is supposedly dry, that doesn't seem valid at all as you don't know the starting state. When you put bore oil on a "dry" clarinet, the slick surface "disappears" so where did the oil go? Then after after a few sessions, you can see the oil remain (not absorbed). So maybe there is another explanation, but is sure looks like the initial applications behave differently than the subsequent ones. Also, you seem to suggest that the oil must be absorbed far into the wood, not just the very outside. I don't know that is the intent. To really prove the point, you would need to test the conditions that cause cracking with treated vs untreated. Again, you are at a level so far beyond me, so much so, I can't even see you, but I'm just not sure about your testing process.
I have been scammed! Lol I actually have a crack in my top joint because I live in New England and the winters are harsh on my clarinet. I’ve been oiling since I found the crack and thought it was helping prevent further damage. Oh well, I’ll stick with my guitar damp-its in my case.
Can you put one of the cut pieces into water for 3 months and show us what the difference if any is? Now that you have oiled them. Maybe do it to an un-oiled one too. Maybe put one in the freezer.
That having been said I think it is appropriate to oil the instrument occasionally. But soaking it 4 months is nonsense. Just rub a little on once in a while.
Ok. Experiments need some type of control. You could have purchased two barrels sawn the first one without oiling and then comparing with the oiled one. I do oil the bore of my clarinets with Almond oil twice a year. Even though Grenadilla wood is very dense, some oil may seep into the clarinet's bore. It does no harm and allow my spit to drain off much better than if not oiled. Thanks for your time and energy, however, next experiment you need some kind of control.
Greetings to you. I appreciated this video. Thanks so much. I have a few questions. Can bore oil go rancid? Do you know what it is made of? Also, years ago I acquired (very cheap) a high end wood clarinet, but there was something funny about it...very old...so have no idea what all could have happened to it along the way...but for some reason with the info I had years ago, I decided to oil both inside and out...grin. But it was the strangest thing, and I cannot recall all of what happened, but I somewhat panicked. A tiny splinter chipped off at an edge and I felt like I had softened things, so I let it dry in a safe place for a considerable amount of time. I had a feeling that someone had possibly also stained it darker or attempted to, since I believe there was a time when it was the black wood that was most desired?? But to me, if it is a dense wood, that grain and wood pattern would be most beautiful to me. Do you recommend any wood polish (like guitar polish?) or substance (to any wood clarinet) if a coat of protection is desired or is that detrimental to it? I have no idea. Thanks bunches for your time. God bless you in Jesus' Name.
This makes me really want to see the difference between a 'blown out' clarinet and a new clarinet. I also am skeptical of the concept that the bore of a clarinet is damaged through use unless there is a change from the exposure to saliva and therefore there is a need for a better cleaning method. I do see a difference in the quality of the wood being harvested and used. Just my 2 cents :)
How about exterior oiling? Is the finish anything more than aesthetic? I’ve taken apart and washed a long-forgotten clarinet and kind of like the dull wood-grain look.
Hello, this is a bit unrelated to the video but I've a general bass clar question. How much resistance is "normal" when going from the A to clarion B? I feel quite a bit in mine, enough that my sound is cut off for .2s when I make the transition. What am I doing wrong?
Bartolomoose Resistance is created by either harder reed you use or by leakage of the clarinet. Check the instrument for possible leakages. Use softer reed if required.
- light source in the bore, examination of excessive light through the pads - try to cover all holes with fingers/some tools directly without keys and applying higher pressure on pads than usual, and check if anything changes czcams.com/video/fYICtTVgZSo/video.html
I don't have grenadilla instruments, so no any interest in protecting anything. Would WD-40 work a bit better to soak some wood layer? What about shoes colorless wax that protects the surface of the leather? There are also water-repellent sprays for car windshield glass that also do not soak glass, but works fine. What is the layer thickness that is able to protect the grendilla wood? Can it be just 0.001mm to be enough? Obviously the naked eye cannot see thin soak layer that protects from water.
Crack happens due to difference in humidity between externl and internl surface. Internal high humidity cause wood extension in internal layers that cause crack on external surface. If you think WD-40 displaces water in bore, it may help equalize humidity inside. As I know WD-40 contains white spirit and mineral oil. So its purpose is to reduce oil surface tension and improve penetration into materials structure. So oil may get deeper with white spirit than without it.
i need to know what all black bass you have and where you have gotten it from, if it was the one that was in 2014, then thats amazing im going to paris like tomorrow, Please and thank you
This has been touched on, you do not have a control for your experiment. I believe your hypothesis is correct, however since you did not cut the barrel in half and soak one half to compare and document the visible difference the only other way to make sure you didn't have saturation would be to have a chemical analysis of the barrel to determine if you had saturation. Eyeballing it means nothing...one could argue you had 100% saturation that is why you had uniformity. You could easily update this by having a bore sample sent to a lab along with the bore oil to see if the chemical compound made it in and at what depth.
PS I am so sorry I missed your performance in Spartanburg SC. I was really disappointed, but I had a work deal out of town...and I have to keep the reed money flowing.
Hey I’ve got a question about bore oil, is it ok for me to use bore oil as key oil? because that’s all my music store had and they said that it would be ok and so far it’s been fine. The last time my clarinet had key work was very long ago and I did it myself because nobody would do it. Has anyone else used bore oil in this way?
Tyler Bischoff On my saxophones, I have used synthetic automatic transmission oil as key oil for several years. Stephen Howard in England, a well known tech, recommends this. So in a pinch, go to the auto parts store ;) The music store stuff is crap. Better yet, buy some key oil from Music Medic (Alisyn), it’s much better.
It depends on the type of bore oil. If it's mineral oil then it will probably be ok for keys, I wouldn't use a vegetable based oil on keys. It would likely dry up and go gummy.
Are you a repair tech or manufacturer? Using a petroleum based oil to penetrate wood like that isn't going to work. Are you familiar with an immersion process? I would suggest doing some more research on wood stabilization. A bore oil of that sort would be more used to coat the inside of a clarinet to keep the water from making the bore "swell" But to get wood to draw in oils you have to add pressure and heat or heat and a vacuum. I think the information that you are trying to get across is agreeable but you are talking about one thing and showing an experiment that wouldn't show success.
Hi Matt, are you saying that petroleum based oils are less likely to penetrate the wood, compared to plant oils? Where can I learn more about what you have mentioned here?
Why not just finish the inside with tru oil? 10 coats won't be .001 thick and NO moisture can penetrate it. Dries hard as glass!! Never worked on a clarinet but I have repaired 100s of fiddles with french polish and tru oil hand rubbed finish. Or you can use varnish and wait 10 years on it to dry :) I would guess tru oil would do the outside of a clarinet bit of good as well. You see it passes sound like hide glue (that's why fiddles are built with it). I notice you clarinet people have a dying calf over a crack. If a fiddle don't have half a dozen cracks, it ain't old enough to play LOL!
Try the reverse: My understanding is that the oil is intended to keep water out of the wood, not to keep the wood from drying out. If that is true, a surface coating of oil should provide a great moisture barrier. So, cut one in half and oil one half. Drop both in water, and then see if the oil protects it or not.
Correct. The clarinet needs to remain moist for protection. But also, water does nasty things, sometimes [like expanding when freezing].
Great insight on the clarinet bore oil topic.
I would suggest a better experiment would be with a very precise scale, weigh a dry barrel, soak it in oil, wipe off the excess and weigh it again. Seven months is a long time and if it soaked the whole way through you wouldn't get the ring like that piece of chalk. Also, sanding it could have filled the endgrain with dust or the heat generated in the cutting/sanding process could have burnt off the oil. As a technician, I can tell you they definitely change dimensions when they are dry verses oiled. Another good test would to measure it with a dial or digital caliper or a micrometer dry vs oiled.
Had a really old dry Pre-R13 Buffet that played extremely flat. I assumed it had to have been very warped including the tone holes. I caked it in Bore Oil for a month and added oil when I saw some had dried up or sucked in to the pores? I reassembled the instrument and tried a shorter barrel about 3mm smaller than the first and intonation became much more controlled and accurate. Oiling your clarinet is good and if you notice that the rings on the tenons or on the bell are loose, that means the wood has constricted or shrank. Meaning it’s dehydrated. Oil that sucka
💯
My repairwoman used to do a test to see if the wood was "thirsty": she'd put a small swipe of bore oil (almond, parafin, and orange extract) on the outside with a cotton swab, and wait a minute. If it was dry, the oil would be virtually gone by the end. Maybe just superficial absorption, but some of it did seem to penetrate the wood.
I think you should cut it in half first, with half being the control.
I have never oiled my clarinet in my life, and luckily I've never had any problems.
That commercial bore oil is not a light oil, in fact more like mineral oil. I've done experiments weighing before and after soaking in 80% almond oil and 20% orange terpene. The weight gain of the various parts is significant. Especially for those manufacturers that don't finish their bore with a shellac/oil finish. So yes if you use an inappropriate oil - it won't soak in. The lack of a control barrel also means we may be looking at wood in which the oil has permeated all of the wood completely. Don't mean to rain on the parade, but this is not definitive, nor scientific. Disagree!
Does bore oil help anything then? Because in my clarinet circles the power of bore oil is rarely questioned and now I feel confused, have I wasted hours disassembling and assembling my instrument when I was oiling it?
My own belief is yes. Talk to a piccolo player. They swear by it. But the whole topic is subjective (what we hear) kind of like tubes vs transistors in a stereo. However, there are few people who work with wood that would advocate against oiling wood vs leaving it dry.
Years ago a man with 20 years of experience in working on woodwind instruments visibly cringed when I told him I've never oiled my clarinet before. I do it now because of the face he made that day but I never really thought about how well it works.
Weight gain is the only accurate way of telling if the oil has been absorbed. The degree of gain indicates the volume of oil absorbed. Also - most commercial bore oils are petroleum based. They are hydrophobic and will not be absorbed. Nut oils are hydrophylic and will be absorbed.
People add things like orange terpene to help the oil penetrate. This may be what you are thinking. There is not enough of a trade in bore oil to have manufacturers trying to scam for more usage.
Very good. You made a believer out of me. Thanks. Your comments about keeping the instrument at room temperature as much as possible is spot on.
I know it would have cost more, but why didn't you saw another barrel in half to show the difference? It would have made your point a bit stronger, though I'll happily take your word for it.
Ranâ Onety Right! Control vs test is the only way to be sure - or cut in half before the soaking
Cutting it in half before soaking would have been a much better choice.
hundidosplodo True, though I guess you could argue that if you saw the barrel in half prior to the oil bath, then the barrel would behave differently to how it does normally, as the surface area, where the barrel was sawn(correct form?) has a different texture to the barrel as a whole, which would screw up the results, because that exact area is where you measure them. Also, my reasoning for stating what I did initially, since he plunged the barrel into the oil half a year ago, I figure the easier fix would be to use a fresh barrel as a comparison rather than having to wait a "whole" half year again.
Well, if NOTHING can be seen, there is absolutely NO need to compare with other cut pieces (where also nothing can be seen) except you have developped some hate against your instrument, then saw it in 78 pieces at least. At your own risk. Be careful to remove all metal pieces before. Don't do it at home, kids!
If you ask any professional wood worker, he'll tell you that oil will NEVER go completely through a piece of wood (even if you add high pressure and higher temperature, and even in much much softer wood as pine wood) Oil only intrudes about a tiny fraction of an inch. And therefore, if you cut the wood afterwards, you would defenitely see the difference in the color between the (possible) oil soaked part and the "normal" wood.
Okay try this.
On a junker top joint wash it thoroughly and rinse and warm water. What you'll find is the wood looks terrible Dusty dry. You may wonder why did I do something so foolish?
Next Jam a couple of cotton balls in the very top of the top joint. Next Step being careful not to spill p o u r bore oil to totally saturate that cotton ball.
Put it in its case and wait a couple weeks. By this time the Wood will have turned dark on the outside of the top joint probably halfway down proving that the oil does penetrate. In fact if you use the lousy low viscosity stuff they sell as bore oil heavily you will in time see the oil escaping the pores on the outside of the clarinet. Another benefit of oiling aside from crack prevention is that a dramatically reduces the amount of water Gathering on the C sharp and E flat Keys on the right side of the top joint. I find the reduction of water in those keys well worth the oiling.
All that said... If you keep the instrument in its case with stable humidity and avoid sudden temperature changes it probably won't crack.
Another important detail is to put cork grease on the end-grain of the top joint cuz this is where a lot of water enters and hence why they crack near this area.
Last and certainly not least another downside of oiling the bore of your instrument is that if you use Valentino synthetic pads the sealing surface is held to the rest of the pad buy a wholly inadequate adhesive. If you get any oil... Any oil at all on the pad it will disintegrate... Usually 5 seconds before your big solo.
For the record I do oil my instruments and in 40 years I've had zero cracks.
That same thing happened to me with one of my Valentino pads. The nice thing is it seems like the inner layers of the pad still give you a good enough seal to get through that solo before you take it in to get it repaired.
Oh, and thanks again for that :)
My tech says there's no need to oil. My clarinet prof never mentioned oiling either. When I was working as a tech apprentice (under someone else, who didn't do much pro work), they did have me oiling student model wood rentals using olive oil when doing a recondition(all keys off).
yes, I would like to see a controlled exp with dyed almond oil on pine and structural hardwood. Nb while cutting the barrel, notice the smoke/mist created. Much the same as when squeezing the last remaining oil into the square jar.
My first reaction on watching this was that maybe the purpose of the oil isn't so much to soak into the wood as to provide a light protective layer to repel the saliva.....but then I wondered, if the oil doesn't actually soak into the wood, why would the saliva?
There is no saliva in the clarinet or any other wind instrument for that matter. The instrument is wet after a playing session from water vapor in the player breath condenses when it gets colder inside the instrument.
Mythbusters - woodwind version
You know what would probably help the interior is wax. Like if you took some very soft rope, something like cotton, natural fiber. And if you soaked that or rubbed it on bees wax to get it worked into the fibers, and then you drew that through the instrument, that should provide a water barrier (much like protecting chapped lips). It would also not react with the wood like polyurethane or shellac would.
I have had my Selmer Paris Series 9* since 1963 when I was 1st Chair Clarinet in high school band (also a member of First Chair Of America) I have NEVER oiled the bore and the whole clarinet looks and plays as good as it did 56 years ago and the bore is as shiny as Henry Selmer Inc made it in 1963. I am also a wood turner and have made many bowls, pens, knife scales, etc. from Cocobolo, African Blackwood, Ebony, and other super hard oily woods. I, and my clarinet, have lived most of our lives in Florida (warm humid climate) and last 20 years in North Carolina (warm humid climate). Obviously this was not a scientific test by a long shot but I think other factors like dry and cold climates play a much larger factor in wood instruments cracking than oiling the bores. I'll never forget the story that a famous classical guitarist told of her first guitar. The family moved from the moist climate of Spain to the super dry climate of the mid-west when they hung the guitar over the door and in a day or two the guitar looked like a pretzel.
I mean it doesn't have to soak into the instrument to protect the wood from moisture, and you can visibly see that the oil will coat the surface of dry looking areas. If anything this dispells the myth that bore oil will significantly alter the acoustic properties of the wood by going too deep.
実際に実験を行い検証すると言う姿勢は非常に大切だと思います。
誰かが言っていたとか、専門家がそう言っていたからなどと言う事を鵜呑みにせず、自分で検証した結果は、自分にとって紛れもない事実なのですから。
The general wisdom in carpentry is to not oil dalbergia woods(cocobolo, rosewood, grenadilla) because 1 they are already very oily and 2 they contain a chemical that stops oil from curing properly.
The oil does penetrate I just oiled my barrel an it took lot of oil . You need to apply super extra thin layers of oil , I fist apply a thin layer then when it’s all penetrated inside the wood I oil it again with another thin layer and so on until the wood stop taking the oil I keep adding layers , immersing the whole thing won’t make any oil penetrate .
I would have tried sanding it by hand. those machines produce a lot of friction/ heat which can burn the oil and the wood
The Adam Savage of the Woodwind world.
Could you make a video (if you haven't already, I couldn't find anything on your channel about it) about what you do to warm up your clarinet if it gets cold? I have a technique that I use, but I don't know how effective it is, especially since my method focuses on warming it up externally.
Weather in Georgia really doesn’t help, really hot during the summer, mild in the spring and fall, and bitter cold in the winter. Always something new to worry about.
Hello Mr. Lowenstern can you please make a review on the Buffet 1180 Intermediate horn?
I’ve had my Buffet Bb Soprano Clarinet since 2011, and I have never used bore oil on it. It still works great, and my instrument is over 40 years old.
Hey and I just thought of one more thing. I think you showed that the wood doesn't readily absorb oil. However, some oils like linseed oil can polymerize and form a protective barrier. It wouldn't work it's way into the wood, but it would form a thin film on top of the wood. When oils like linseed, olive, and other non petroleum based oils are exposed to air and light, they don't really "dry" but they do become solidified. This is how oil based paints cure. The process requires sunlight though and it takes days or weeks to set. So you would need to expose it to UV light inside the barrel and not use the instrument for a week or more. To get an idea of what this film is like, it's the reason why seasoning cast iron works. The older the pan is, and the more it's seasoned, the more non stick and water proof it becomes. Because the oil just lays down layer after layer of polymerized solids.
Love this man
a control barrel would really help to say if it made or not a diference
There is research from about 50 years ago now showing that the wood does not absorb oil, nor does it reduces the woods absorption of water
Cheers
Bore oil does work and I'm not in the bore oil business. A better experiment would be to make a side by side comparison with a barrel unoiled and oiled. The weight and thickness of the oil must be light enough to absorb, and a delivery agent like turpentine or varsol is needed as well so it can absorb easily. It has made a big difference on my professional bassoon over the years, but I admit the maple in a bassoon is far more porous than blackwood.
Proposed Analysis For Determining If, And How Much, Bore Oil Will Absorb Into Wood Clarinet Material
I recommend and offer an analysis approach that, I think, addresses some of the comments that have been made to date for this video and that I would I recommend and prefer to see completed by someone in the future. I believe the approach I describe below would be more definitive about if, and how much of, the bore oil is absorbed into the wood. Comments on my proposed approach are welcome. One day, someone might pursue this analysis again. At present, I am not able to complete the analysis myself. Also, this proposed analysis only attempts to determine if bore oil is, or is not, absorbed into the wood. It does not establish (a) if oiling the bore reduces the risks of cracking, (b) how much bore oil is absorbed into the wood during a normal swab-with-bore-oil approach (no immersion) or (c) if types of bore oil other than the typed used for the analysis will or will not absorb into the wood.
Proposed Analysis For Determining If, And How Much, Bore Oil Will Absorb Into Wood Clarinet Material:
a) Cut Multiple Similar Rings - Cut a barrel into six "ring" type pieces, each cut perpendicular to the bore and each piece as similar in thickness to each other as possible (about 8 mm thick). Cut the pieces with a thin, fine tooth, hand saw with as little blade speed and friction as possible so as to minimize heat-alteration of the wood surface that the sides of the blade teeth rub against. A miter box would help achieve consistently parallel cuts.
b) Apply Indentification Codes To Rings - Apply a distinct identification number/code to each ring that will not be modified when the ring is immersed on bore oil. Perhaps this could be done by filing one to six shallow grooves into an edge with a different number of grooves for each ring.
c) Stabilize Moisture Content In Rings - Place all code-marked rings together in an airtight container such as a plastic zip-close sandwich bag and allow their relative moisture content to stabilize and equalize among all six rings. I suspect a month of such stabilization in the air-tight container would be sufficient.
d) Precisely Weigh Rings - Remove the rings from the air-tight container and immediately weigh each ring with a very precise scale that has a resolution about 1 microgram or less. I anticipate each ring will have a weight (with or without oil) of about 5 grams. I anticipate that, if bore oil is absorbed into the wood, the weight of the absorbed oil will likely be no more than 5 to 50 micrograms. Record the precise, exact weight of each ring.
e) Put Rings To Respective Sealed Containers - Immediately after weighing all ring, (1) return three of the rings to the air-tight container and (2) immerse the other three rings in a small, sealed container of bore oil with the ends of all three rings in contact with the bore oil.
f) Wait For Bore Oil Absorption - Allow the bore-oil-immersed rings to remain in the bore oil for a sufficient period of time. I anticipate no more than one to three months is needed for the rings to absorb as much bore oil as they can.
g) Remove Surface Bore Oil And Weigh Again - After the immersion period, remove the bore-oil-immersed rings from the bore oil and, using a lint-free cloth and tissue paper, wipe off as much of the bore oil remaining on the surface as possible and not stopping until no more bore oil can be transferred from the ring to the lint-free cloth and tissue paper - determined by viewing the surface of the tissue paper. Then immediately weigh these three rings.
h) Weigh Non-Immersed Rings Again - Remove the non-immersed rings from their air-tight container and immediately weigh them again.
i) Compare First And Second Weights Of Non-Immersed Rings - Compare the first individual and combined weight of the non-immersed to the, later, subsequent individual and combined weights. They should, of course, be extremely close, if not exactly matching as precisely as the scale can resolve. Any variation raises questions about the repeatability and other variability in the scale or ring weighting technique.
j) Compare First And Second Weights Of Immersed Rings - Compare the pre-immersion and post-immersion weights of the bore-oil-immersed rings, both individual and combined weights. Calculate the percentage change of weight for each individual ring and of the combined weight for the immersed rings.
Percent-Change = [(weight after immersion) - (weight before immersion)]/[100 x (weight before immersion)]
I would conclude that a percentage change of positive 0.1 or more would be a fair indication that the rings absorbed bore oil.
Steven
I had never heard of bore oil until late in college. Part of me does wish I'd used it because my clarinet of 12 years did crack all the way though last summer, after I'd moved to a drier climate. Just to know it wasn't totally my fault...but it probably was.
I purchased my Buffet R13 Prestige in 1991. I did the whole oil routine in the beginning but have since lagged (10 years at a time). I can tell you this, when I put oil on my precious baby and let it sit...nothing happens. It does not "soak in" in the least. I recently took a hiatus for four years and came back to my clarinet. I oiled it, "just to be sure" and the oil just sat on it. I tend to agree with Mike here.😎
Actually we don't use mineral oil for clarinet
So it might be the climate you are in that causes your clarinets not to crack. From my experience, cold dry weather is often the time for cracking clarinets. An easy way to prevent this is to use a violin or viola little strip thing whatever they are called. Viola are a little more effective bc they are bigger.
Whether it does much who knows, but it’s a fact that clarinets indeed crack and this seems to work, and you don’t have to be like “man gotta oil my clarinet today...” it’s just a little thing that can go in your case and u don’t really gotta think about it then.
Where's your control (i.e, barrel left non-bore oiled)? Even so, for less dense woods like Rosewood, I highly recommend bore oiling, just to make sure the wood seals (i.e, doesn't breath). Just my opinion and I'm just an amateur clarinet tooter. lol
:)
Interesting experiment! : )
I have a piece I would absolutely love for you to play on Bass clarinet, Clarinet, ( and I believe there is a EEb Contra-alto part) but what I would like to hear is Trittico-Vaclav Nelhybel, it has great parts for the clarinets and in my opinion is a fantastic and quite challenging piece of music. 😀😀
WHERE IS THE BLACKBIRD VIDEO????? I LOVED THAT COVER SO MUCH
This is a pretty cool experiment and also fun to watch! Thanks for posting.
What would you expect to see...you could have had a before and after example.
The cutting generates very hight temperature that will vaporizer and burn the old.
I hope that isn't the case because I never oilmy oboes and they are just fine 😀
(Edited: I wrote this before seeing the other comments, so there is some overlap)
Man, you rock, but not sure about your testing here. You might be right, but if so, my assumptions about what I observe myself must have another explanation for the disappearing oil.
Did you accurately weigh before/after as that would be a much better test? You used a "new" piece to test, not one that is supposedly dry, that doesn't seem valid at all as you don't know the starting state. When you put bore oil on a "dry" clarinet, the slick surface "disappears" so where did the oil go? Then after after a few sessions, you can see the oil remain (not absorbed). So maybe there is another explanation, but is sure looks like the initial applications behave differently than the subsequent ones.
Also, you seem to suggest that the oil must be absorbed far into the wood, not just the very outside. I don't know that is the intent.
To really prove the point, you would need to test the conditions that cause cracking with treated vs untreated.
Again, you are at a level so far beyond me, so much so, I can't even see you, but I'm just not sure about your testing process.
I have been scammed! Lol
I actually have a crack in my top joint because I live in New England and the winters are harsh on my clarinet. I’ve been oiling since I found the crack and thought it was helping prevent further damage. Oh well, I’ll stick with my guitar damp-its in my case.
i need help with the artie shaw concerto please make a video on it
Can you put one of the cut pieces into water for 3 months and show us what the difference if any is? Now that you have oiled them. Maybe do it to an un-oiled one too. Maybe put one in the freezer.
That having been said I think it is appropriate to oil the instrument occasionally. But soaking it 4 months is nonsense. Just rub a little on once in a while.
That was to prove his point. Which is pointless because his experiment was not scientific. The control wasn’t even correct from the jump
Ok. Experiments need some type of control. You could have purchased two barrels sawn the first one without oiling and then comparing with the oiled one. I do oil the bore of my clarinets with Almond oil twice a year. Even though Grenadilla wood is very dense, some oil may seep into the clarinet's bore. It does no harm and allow my spit to drain off much better than if not oiled. Thanks for your time and energy, however, next experiment you need some kind of control.
Greetings to you. I appreciated this video. Thanks so much. I have a few questions. Can bore oil go rancid? Do you know what it is made of? Also, years ago I acquired (very cheap) a high end wood clarinet, but there was something funny about it...very old...so have no idea what all could have happened to it along the way...but for some reason with the info I had years ago, I decided to oil both inside and out...grin. But it was the strangest thing, and I cannot recall all of what happened, but I somewhat panicked. A tiny splinter chipped off at an edge and I felt like I had softened things, so I let it dry in a safe place for a considerable amount of time. I had a feeling that someone had possibly also stained it darker or attempted to, since I believe there was a time when it was the black wood that was most desired?? But to me, if it is a dense wood, that grain and wood pattern would be most beautiful to me. Do you recommend any wood polish (like guitar polish?) or substance (to any wood clarinet) if a coat of protection is desired or is that detrimental to it? I have no idea. Thanks bunches for your time. God bless you in Jesus' Name.
This makes me really want to see the difference between a 'blown out' clarinet and a new clarinet. I also am skeptical of the concept that the bore of a clarinet is damaged through use unless there is a change from the exposure to saliva and therefore there is a need for a better cleaning method. I do see a difference in the quality of the wood being harvested and used. Just my 2 cents :)
Brian Billings This is a really good point - plus, how do we know this barrel wasn't religiously oiled by its original owner?
Hey Michael, so I live in the Pacific Northwest and here it’s cold and wet, how would that affect my reeds and instrument?
What about cocobolo
How about exterior oiling? Is the finish anything more than aesthetic? I’ve taken apart and washed a long-forgotten clarinet and kind of like the dull wood-grain look.
Oiling from the outside will warp the bore
Hello, this is a bit unrelated to the video but I've a general bass clar question. How much resistance is "normal" when going from the A to clarion B? I feel quite a bit in mine, enough that my sound is cut off for .2s when I make the transition. What am I doing wrong?
Bartolomoose Resistance is created by either harder reed you use or by leakage of the clarinet. Check the instrument for possible leakages. Use softer reed if required.
Can you rec a good way to check for leaks? aside from dunking the thing of course
- light source in the bore, examination of excessive light through the pads
- try to cover all holes with fingers/some tools directly without keys and applying higher pressure on pads than usual, and check if anything changes
czcams.com/video/fYICtTVgZSo/video.html
i’m excited
Pure genius! (BTW, what happened to "Blackbird"?)
I don't have grenadilla instruments, so no any interest in protecting anything. Would WD-40 work a bit better to soak some wood layer? What about shoes colorless wax that protects the surface of the leather? There are also water-repellent sprays for car windshield glass that also do not soak glass, but works fine.
What is the layer thickness that is able to protect the grendilla wood? Can it be just 0.001mm to be enough? Obviously the naked eye cannot see thin soak layer that protects from water.
Crack happens due to difference in humidity between externl and internl surface. Internal high humidity cause wood extension in internal layers that cause crack on external surface. If you think WD-40 displaces water in bore, it may help equalize humidity inside.
As I know WD-40 contains white spirit and mineral oil. So its purpose is to reduce oil surface tension and improve penetration into materials structure. So oil may get deeper with white spirit than without it.
You can also add some UREA to your clarinet for the fragrance.
i need to know what all black bass you have and where you have gotten it from, if it was the one that was in 2014, then thats amazing im going to paris like tomorrow, Please and thank you
But what about rosewood?
Michael for prime minister!
This has been touched on, you do not have a control for your experiment. I believe your hypothesis is correct, however since you did not cut the barrel in half and soak one half to compare and document the visible difference the only other way to make sure you didn't have saturation would be to have a chemical analysis of the barrel to determine if you had saturation. Eyeballing it means nothing...one could argue you had 100% saturation that is why you had uniformity. You could easily update this by having a bore sample sent to a lab along with the bore oil to see if the chemical compound made it in and at what depth.
PS I am so sorry I missed your performance in Spartanburg SC. I was really disappointed, but I had a work deal out of town...and I have to keep the reed money flowing.
Sorry I missed you in SC too. I was busy paying for the lab to whom I’d send my bore oil sample! 😀
I vote that they give you a grant!
🐐
Hey I’ve got a question about bore oil, is it ok for me to use bore oil as key oil? because that’s all my music store had and they said that it would be ok and so far it’s been fine. The last time my clarinet had key work was very long ago and I did it myself because nobody would do it. Has anyone else used bore oil in this way?
Tyler Bischoff On my saxophones, I have used synthetic automatic transmission oil as key oil for several years. Stephen Howard in England, a well known tech, recommends this. So in a pinch, go to the auto parts store ;) The music store stuff is crap. Better yet, buy some key oil from Music Medic (Alisyn), it’s much better.
Steve Keller thanks for the help:)
It depends on the type of bore oil. If it's mineral oil then it will probably be ok for keys, I wouldn't use a vegetable based oil on keys. It would likely dry up and go gummy.
Are you a repair tech or manufacturer? Using a petroleum based oil to penetrate wood like that isn't going to work. Are you familiar with an immersion process? I would suggest doing some more research on wood stabilization. A bore oil of that sort would be more used to coat the inside of a clarinet to keep the water from making the bore "swell" But to get wood to draw in oils you have to add pressure and heat or heat and a vacuum. I think the information that you are trying to get across is agreeable but you are talking about one thing and showing an experiment that wouldn't show success.
Hi Matt, are you saying that petroleum based oils are less likely to penetrate the wood, compared to plant oils? Where can I learn more about what you have mentioned here?
Why not just finish the inside with tru oil? 10 coats won't be .001 thick and NO moisture can penetrate it. Dries hard as glass!! Never worked on a clarinet but I have repaired 100s of fiddles with french polish and tru oil hand rubbed finish. Or you can use varnish and wait 10 years on it to dry :) I would guess tru oil would do the outside of a clarinet bit of good as well. You see it passes sound like hide glue (that's why fiddles are built with it). I notice you clarinet people have a dying calf over a crack. If a fiddle don't have half a dozen cracks, it ain't old enough to play LOL!
A fiddle doesn’t have to be airtight. A clarinet does.
Great content but this video seemed so over produced
Lab guy is a hunk.
A LOT OF DAMAGE !
Second
Does it matter?