I'm in the throes of restoring a 1928 Buffet clarinet
for my wife. A new one is thousands, I paid $30 for
this one, it was pretty sad. This may or may not work...
If it's cracked, it's junk, if not, you polish the silver and reseal
it, right?
Cracked != junk, necessarily, but it depends on how bad/where
any crack is. This had a chip spalled out of the upper shoulder,
which is cosmetically disturbing but not significant. I was able
to glue it back such that you can't see where it was. It had
two large surface cracks in the barrel, but they didn't go
through. (These can't be seen any more, they also came out
rather well.) It had a broken-off bridge key, which I have yet
to repair. (The neighbor is going to help, she makes jewelry.)
A lot of labor, but it's looking fabulous. Whether or not it
plays well won't be known'til I'm done, perhaps after a trip
through the shop for final tune-up. Then off to the principal
clarinet in the symphony for evaluation, she's Jill's old college
roommate. My hope is that it'll be stunning. That is possible,
but so is that it'll be crap. Clarinets that old are a gamble.
Thirty years newer, now that would have been much more likely to
be a stunner. Full story:
http://userweb.windwireless.net/~jimc/claribuf.html
Tell me where you end up buying the pads and cork gaskets...
I got them on eBay. About $12 for all of it. Pads from China,
no doubt from the Soylent factory, cork from Ontario. (Indirectly,
I'm sure!) If you want actual sources, I can look them up.
-- Jim
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