jman: Your parsing of what is and what is not my OPINION is boring and has nothing to do with the use of swabs and pad savers. That's why I decided not to reply. Give it a rest, please.
Gordon: Thanks for the comments . . . I've always found your posts to be informative.
Thanks, Dave.
Even if the moisture inside a saxophone may be corrosive, and even if the moisture eventually leads to a deterioration of the pad, I'm thinking that those processes would take SO long that the results could be considered diminimus (did I spell that correctly?).
I'd say that apart from adjustment, around 50% of a technicians' work on saxes is replacing pads that have hardened to a state where they can no longer be made to seal.
(I have decades-old stock pads that have not hardened. So itis use or abuse that makes them harden.
As Saxoclese points out, the palm keys and Eb are far more subject to wetness than the rest, and these harden long before the others.
If your pads are not hardening then I suspect it is because you swallow all your saliva (like I do but
many players don't), and play (rather than "live") in an environment where there is little condensation in the sax.
One aspect perhaps not mentioned in
this thread yet, is that experience with leather boots and with a leather pump washer in a garden sprayer has suggested to me that a repeated cycle of wet/dry seems to do more damage to leather than being constantly wet or constantly dry.
I suggest that this may be a reason for keeping some degree of moisture in the case, hence justification for leaving a pad saver inside the sax mor inside the instrument,
providing that in one's climate, mold is not an issue.
Mold is far more of an issue with
clarinet pads, probably because of far less air circulation within the case and around the fibres of a good pad saver. This is why, in my climate, I cannot recommend pad savers for clarinet.
