richardr
Well-Known Member
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I'm sure that this has been mentioned many times before, but I haven't seen it in the past year so perhaps it's worth a mention: the corks on the necks of both my tenors had become compressed through years of use so that my mouthpiece was a slack fit. Two temporary fixes:
1. Wrap the cork in PTFE tape to build it up; and
2. Heat the cork over a flame so that it expands and fits again. After a couple of recommendations of this method (one from Colin the Bear -thanks, Colin) I tried this on my Grassi cork this morning. Both recommendations were to use the flame from a lighter but I used a cooking stove with a very low flame because this left both my hands free so that I could rotate the mouthpiece to apply the flame evenly all round the cork. I didn't time the exposure of the cork to the flame but I should think it was a second or less - as long as it took me to rotate it through 360 degrees. It worked a treat: the cork has swelled and, with the aid of a smear of grease, my mouthpiece is now a good fit.
I don't think that the heating method would work with a damaged cork - if your cork is torn, tape it - and the result appears to me to be the sort of thing you'd do to keep playing until you can get a new cork as opposed to a permanent fix, but it's serving me well while my TJ mouthpiece is away for re-corking..
1. Wrap the cork in PTFE tape to build it up; and
2. Heat the cork over a flame so that it expands and fits again. After a couple of recommendations of this method (one from Colin the Bear -thanks, Colin) I tried this on my Grassi cork this morning. Both recommendations were to use the flame from a lighter but I used a cooking stove with a very low flame because this left both my hands free so that I could rotate the mouthpiece to apply the flame evenly all round the cork. I didn't time the exposure of the cork to the flame but I should think it was a second or less - as long as it took me to rotate it through 360 degrees. It worked a treat: the cork has swelled and, with the aid of a smear of grease, my mouthpiece is now a good fit.
I don't think that the heating method would work with a damaged cork - if your cork is torn, tape it - and the result appears to me to be the sort of thing you'd do to keep playing until you can get a new cork as opposed to a permanent fix, but it's serving me well while my TJ mouthpiece is away for re-corking..