Accessories Yany Boostars - or generally 'tone enhancers'

[Colin the Bear]

I saw a Chinese-built horn at Frankfurt many years ago that had a corked crook joint.
I think the problem is likely to be that cork will need some sort of lubrication from time-to-time, and that can get messy...particularly where the case is concerned.

Thinking about it, a clarinet tenon doesn't have to resist rotation. Nothing like the neck turning into a football rattle.
Mess has never caused a problem for me.

 

[turf3]

Thing is, the saxophone neck joint is a suboptimal design all the way round.

In theory the lower portion is the seal and the upper portion is the clamp. Except that you need to be able to get the thing in and out of the clamp - which implies some clearance - and you need a line to line fit at the sealing part - zero clearance. That would lead you to making the seal part bigger, except then the neck wobbles. Or you can make the upper part bigger, except there's no practical way to do that.

Next issue is that making the clamp by simply cutting a slot basically guarantees that the roundness of that part of the receiver gradually gets distorted. Plus the bottom of the slot is prone to cracking due to the stress riser there.

Of course the joint is very short (about 1" long) and yet it's supposed to withstand side loads AND not rotate. (For reference, a flute head joint connection is about double the length, with less side load and essentially zero rotational torque on it.)

This kind of joint is made in many other types of equipment and the most common way is to have some kind of a threaded collar, with a short taper part, to make the mechanical fixing; and then an O-ring whether radially or axially sealing to seal the joint. Of course the taper would have to be a bigger angle than self-locking so you can get it back apart. For a joint like this that's going to be constantly assembled and disassembled, I like the face sealing O-ring best.

Who knows, maybe one of these day's when the work's all done I'll draw one up have it made and install it on my expendable Mexi-Conn tenor.