Can anyone recommend a good shop which sells 2mm leather pads from 9mm - 18mm?
I bought some off a shop in England and they are all too big at 3mm, jamming the key mechanism for my simple system flute.
Maybe I am doing this wrong and should try the Prestini type? The tone holes seem to leak with the 3mm no matter what I do.
Thanks for any help!
Hi Tone,
Not knowing where you are, I don’t know who to recommend. As a former NAPBIRT instrument tech, I’d say take the key off and visit a local band instrument repair store. They can dry fit a pad to it and send you on your way for a few dollars/pounds/euros or less.
Most leaking pads are either too big, as you pointed out, or simply installed incorrectly.
What procedure did you follow to install the pad?
Is your key cup concave to follow the curve of the flute body or flat?
I use a leather 3mm (thick) pad but if ever they are too big (and they often are) I “unpick” the back, carefully remove the card backing and shave 1mm or so with a very sharp blade from the felt then reglue it back to the same form providing me with a 2mm thick pad. I’ve found this much easier than constructing a pad from scratch. 2mm are rare and usually not of the best quality should they be available.
I think that “punters” can buy them from Windcraft for around £2 each. I buy them at trade price but you really need to buy them in 100s to benefit.
H
These are clarinet pads you’re using? Or something else?
Try http://www.musicmedic.com
They do single pads in thick, medium and thin. And other options.
Also try http://www.instrumentclinicusa.com
They also do single pads in many styles and thicknesses.
Both of the above offer excellent quality and service. Good shipping rates too. Personally for flutes I buy a few in different thicknesses or styles so I can ‘mix n match’ as needed.
Are you using shellac or a glue to float your pads? I think with shellac stick I tend to use less and thus the result is less ‘bulky’. Less messy too.
Vaughan
Hi there,
Thanks for the tip. That’s what I’m doing wrong.
I stripped the 3mm pad and binned the felt, and reassembled the leather onto the card - which might be just over 1mm then. It barely stayed unrucked on the card and the leather looked wrinkgled and made a sticky mess on the back of the pad. Worse, it leaks.
I didn’t think it was possible to cut the felt any thinner but that makes sense. It might make use of the 3mm pads I have. I’ll try the shop and see since it’s UK based.
Thanks!
Hi,
I’m sure these are flute pads - they are white leather instead of the brown clarinet ones, but maybe clarinets can also have white pads.
Were the proper simple system flute makers get theirs -do they really hand assemble each pad to make a purse shape?
Admittedly, I used blu-tack (!!) which probably did worse for the bulk of the 3mm pad. Or I tried stripping a 3mm pad of the felt, and cramming the gooey back onto the seat of the cup. But it was just to sound the flute to see if it was decent. It’s a keyed simple system Jerome Thibouville flute, which sounds lovely when the blu-tack pads don’t all come off mid-key lol.
Didn’t realise shellac could adhere the pad to the cup!
Modern clarinet pads are usually white leather or ‘skin’:
Sometimes brown or black or other:
Modern flute pads are usually yellow ‘skin’ or leather with a hole in them:
Chances are you have white leather clarinet pads. These are the most suitable for keyed simple-system flutes and as stated above can be slimmed down if necessary. The MusicMedic ‘Thin Clarinet Pads’ are stated to be 2.5mm which is pretty thin for a leather & felt pad.
Shellac is the most common way of fixing pads. Although some people like hotmelt glue. Anything you can heat and allow for adjustment is good since properly seating a pad can be tricky!
Before shellac was a sealing wax which I think disappeared by the start of the 20th century, if not long, long before.
Personally I recommend shellac stick - crack a small chip off, heat it in the padcup (not too much heat!) and put in the new pad. A non-serrated butterknife makes a good padslick for pressing the pad in for levelling.
Blu-tac may hold a pad in place fro a while but its flexibility and yielding, expansive nature would probably not help at all with trying to seat a pad.
V
To shave the felt; drill a (blind) hole in some hard wood of the same size as the felt, use a wood bit with a flat profile. Drill out just 1-2mm - trial and error.. place the felt that you have removed from the pad in hole… this should leave just 1mm or so proud of the drilled hole. shave off the felt that stands proud and remove the felt that you will be using from the hole with a pin. As the felt that has been retained in the hole is secured from all sides its round profile should with any luck be kept.
It is possible to use saxophone pads and use the material but then you have to cut it the circle profile as well as the thickness. This is done with hole punches but requires special tools.
The leather can’t be put directly onto the card as there is not enough “padding” to accommodate the tone-hole profile.
H
There are tips on adapting pads on Terry McGee’s website which I found very useful. Damping the pad with a lightly damp cloth to free the glue and make the leather flexible and to hold things still while working on it is a very good tip.
I also use blind holes in a block of wood (with a small hole - 1.5-2mm - drilled right through the middle) for re-creating the pad after thinning the felt and/or putting in a thinner card disc or trimming a bevel onto the card rim to fit better into concave key cups etc. I place the damp leather disc over a blind hole the same diameter as the pad about 3mm deep. Then place the stack of the plastic waterproofing disc, the felt and the card onto it and use a dowel of something like a screwdriver butt to press all neatly into the hole, thus slightly stretching the leather. Thus all is held in place properly aligned while you dab PVA glue on the back of the card and rake up the leather and poke and press it back into place as neatly crimped as possible to close the pad up, then press it down with something flat while the glue sets. Then you can use a suitable thin, blunt probe through the middle hole to push the re-made pad out. This is much easier and produces a neater result than trying to do them freehand on your damp cloth (which is bloody fiddly and it is hard to tension the leather evenly).
Pad reforming block. You can see I drilled two offset rows of small holes right through the block, then drilled shallow, blind holes (centred on the small holes) with graduated drill sizes to match pad sizes (half-mm gradations) I needed to work on. (Of course, one could use the same small holes other side of the block for more sizes.)
