[patton45]

My kid has been switching mps a lot and the cork is getting compressed. will get it recorked after school.

was considering using plumbers or duct tape around the cork as a stop gap.
Anything special about cork other than it keeps the mp in place?

thx - Craig

 

[kymarto]

No. Basically, anything that provides and airtight seal and allows you to move the mpc on the neck and keep the seal should do fine. A couple of wraps of plumber's teflon tape should work fine as a stop-gap measure. Duct tape might bleed adhesive and make a mess, though maybe not in a short period of time. Even a strip of paper wrapped around the cork is fine as a temporary measure. Another thing you can do is to put cork grease on the cork and then heat it with a lighter (but don't burn the cork!). This will make the cork expand, but it will recompress rather easily, so it really should be recorked.

A "permanent temporary" fix is to wrap thickish thread around the cork--enough winds to build it up to a point where the mpc fit is snug. But thread is much less compressible than cork, so this will probably not work if you use different mpcs of different shank diameters.

 

[renman43]

As noted above, duct tape could be messy. I have used paper from time to time, and electrical tape works pretty well. Both can be easily replaced as needed.

 

[tmuraoka]

Even a strip of paper wrapped around the cork is fine as a temporary measure.

I find the foil that comes in cigarette boxes works well, doesn't disintegrate when it gets wet, and someone will usually have some when you need it at a gig.

As a temporary measure, of course... [rolleyes]

 

[martinm5862]

A "permanent temporary" fix is to wrap thickish thread around the cork--enough winds to build it up to a point where the mpc fit is snug. But thread is much less compressible than cork, so this will probably not work if you use different mpcs of different shank diameters.[/QUOTE]

I use thread for loose mouthpieces and take it off for tight mouthpieces.

 

[tjaart]

i use the blue painter's tape, that also works well.

 

[ProDigit]

probably plastic foil or wrapper would work too.
Cork is very soft, and indeed breaks down easily.
Some manufacturers are experimenting with Neoprene, or other materials.

I would not use Teflon, it disintegrates after first use, it may be a temporary solution if you don't plan on taking the mouthpiece off.
Heck you could even use the rubber entrance for blowing up a baloon.

 

[jbtsax]

i use the blue painter's tape, that also works well.

+1 For a temporary build up of a cork nothing works better than Blue Masking tape. You can adjust it to the correct thickness by adding or taking away layers. It holds up well buying time until the cork can be replaced and best of all, it does not leave a sticky mess. Even if the entire cork is missing, you can build one with Blue Masking tape to get by.

This works even better for clarinet tenon corks. To get the correct width, place a long piece of the tape on a sheet of wax paper and take it to a paper cutter and cut it into 3/8" wide strips or mark it and use scissors. It comes right off the wax paper and keeps its stickiness.

 

[jbtsax]

Back to the original question of this thread. The cork on the saxophone neck does have the effect of dampening the transfer of the vibrations of the mouthpiece to the neck attached to the body of the sax. Somewhere in my box of "stuff" is a hard rubber fitting that goes over the neck that the mouthpiece can be put on similar to a cork. The effect should be close to that of the hard rubber mouthpiece transferring its vibrations directly to the neck. It would be a simple matter to record the same set-up with the hard rubber "cork" and a natural cork and compare the sounds to see if adding to the transfer of vibration to the neck has any measurable impact on the sound produced.