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  1. #1
    Join Date
    Jan 2006
    Location
    United States Of America
    Posts
    194

    Default All metal clarinet. Should I polish or leave the patina?

    My Peddler American Elkhart Indiana is a full length all metal clarinet. Guessing the age maybe 100 years old. I'm not sure if polishing should be attempted or just be left alone and used with the patina. I would like to learn play it after getting it serviced with new pads and tenon cork repair work.
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  3. #2
    Join Date
    Jul 2010
    Location
    melbourne
    Posts
    381

    Default

    It looks like its silver plated.
    I'd at least give it a clean with a silver cloth and see what you think.
    But personally Id try and make it shine.

  4. #3
    Join Date
    Apr 2011
    Location
    se Melbourne
    Age
    62
    Posts
    2,567

    Default

    Ask for advice where you get it serviced.

  5. #4
    Join Date
    May 2016
    Location
    Blue Mountains, Australia
    Posts
    462

    Default

    Often silverplated saxes and clarinets from that era (1910s, '20s, '30s) are also clear lacquered over the silverplate. As a protective measure against tarnish.

    Yours could very well have that lacquer treatment, at least on the bell anyway. The photo of the upper looks typically silver tarnished and with no remnants of any old lacquer there.

    Soaking a few hours in very hot water will remove the lacquer to allow a silver polish but will also ruin the key pads and corks and felts so is really an overhaul and stripdown process best done by a technician or eager woodwind enthusiast and I honestly only mention it out of interest.

    Personally I would just give it a light clean with a microfibre cloth, try a light polish in a clearly tarnished area with a silver polish impregnated cloth (available at the supermarket) to see if it is lacquered over or not.

    Don't use liquid silver polish or creams unless you are overhauling it with a full stripdown. The liquid ruins the pads and just gets trapped in crevices where it can't be polished out easily.

    Good luck with it.

    V

  6. #5
    Join Date
    Dec 2005
    Location
    South Australia
    Posts
    4,470

    Default

    Have the person who does the service polish it it will me a much better job when it is disassembled.

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