[Enviroguy]

I got a great deal on a doubling oboe for my wife for Christmas. I had bought her a pretty good vintage oboe a few years ago. But she became discouraged with it and asked me to sell it and "get it out of the house". So I obeyed as any well-seasoned husband would.

But this year, she's now asking for another oboe. So I went cheap and scored a nice modern Selmer Signet oboe off eBay at a super low price. The background on this horn is that it was bought by a tech for parts because the middle tenon socket was broken. But the tech though it was so new looking and nice that he decided to repair it.

I got it last night. And with a synthetic reed, I can play the oboe up and down with no trouble what so ever. It seems well regulated. The middle tenon joint is glued solidly together so I just now ordered a soprano sax gig bag to put it in and I'm returning the regular oboe case I ordered from Amazon. That's no problem. And I believe this inexpensive but great playing oboe will be just the thing for my wife to noodle around on and maybe even use in performance now and then.

My problem is that the repaired crack that is all the way around the center tenon socket is very visible and has left kind of a gash due to flaking. I'd like to try and fill this blemish in with some kind of epoxy, putty or other material that I can sand down and polish to match the shiny black plastic body. The crack is already professionally fix and seals. Filling in the blemish would only be for looks.

It you know what I could use to do this, please let me know. And thanks for you time. :bluewink:

 

[artstove]

I'm not an instrument tech, but have done a fair amount of boat and house repairs. I would think an epoxy (like West System) with an appropriate powdered pigment mixed in would be the best bet. The standard West stuff is naturally fairly thin, but you can add thickeners to it to get the consistency you want. Given that you are looking at a small quantity, even the pigment itself would probably be sufficient to act as both a colorant and a thickener. Do a couple of tests first, though. West also has great technical advisors, who are basically epoxy geeks, and they are happy to take your calls and help you figure out how to use their products.
http://www.westsystem.com/ss/

 

[Gordon (NZ)]

I use epoxy to which I have mixed black powder pigment from a paint supplier. It's cheap.
Slow setting epoxy sticks better (and possibly harder?) than fast setting.

These days, for filling black timber, technicians more often use grenadilla powder with superglue (applied alternately into the cavity), but if you get a run of superglue over plastic it makes a most unsightly mess, especially if you try to wipe it off.

Even epoxy can mess up plastics. I use Sellotape as a masking tape on either side of the line to be filled.

Finish off with progressively finer sand paper, down to about 2400 grit, then polish with Brasso.

It might be a good idea to tap off the reinforcing ring before you start.

 

[Stephen Howard]

I'd use an epoxy glue - and as Gordon suggests, I'd avoid the fast-setting stuff.

You can use acrylic paint to stain epoxy resin - just nip down to your local art shop and get a tube or pot of black.
You won't need much - a blob large enough to sit on the end of a matchstick should be enough to colour a small amount of glue...and you can always add more as you mix.
A little heat when you're mixing the glue and pigment will help, stick the mix under a desklamp for a few minutes. It'll temporarily thin the mix too, making it easier to flow into the crack - and it will cure faster.
It's worth slooshing the crack out with cigarette lighter fluid first, just to remove any grease that might have got in there - give it half an hour at room temperature to fully evaporate (or heat it with a desklamp).

Once you've applied the glue it wouldn't hurt to gently warm the area for a little while, to help the glue bond.
I also often use a hot needle which I poke into the joint. This helps to thin the glue and remove any trapped air pockets. You'll need a flame to heat the needle, and it's important not to get it too hot or it will burn the glue. To save on cleaning up later you can use cigarette lighter fluid to clean off any excess glue from around the joint.

Rather than waiting for the glue to dry before trimming it down, you can slice it with a sharp blade when the glue is about 3/4 cured. Keep a blob of the leftover glue handy so that you can test it from time to time to see how cured it is.
It takes a practised hand though to avoid digging the blade into the joint, so rather than go for a 'flush' cut you might just want to use this method to reduce the amount of dried glue you'll have to file off later.

Regards,

 

[shootingstar]

Hey enviroguy, Do you have a picture of the crack/blemish? I'd like to see the problem before I offer advice.

 

[Gordon (NZ)]

Stephen, are you saying that acrylic paint, witih its water base, mixes with epoxy? In my experience water will never remove epoxy from my fingers, so I intuitively think epoxy would not mix with water based paint.

 

[Stephen Howard]

Stephen, are you saying that acrylic paint, witih its water base, mixes with epoxy? In my experience water will never remove epoxy from my fingers, so I intuitively think epoxy would not mix with water based paint.

I wouldn't have considered it either, but I got the tip from one of the boffins at Araldite. I'd been buying their tubes of pigment but wasn't able to get quite the range of browns I needed (their own brown is massively biased to the red side) even by mixing the pigments - and I was advised to try acrylic paint.
I thought at the time that it was jolly decent of him to tell me, considering they sold proprietory pigments, but I think it was clear that I was never going to get through more than a handful of their tubes in a lifetime.
I found a little heat was necessary to get a good mix - but I always heat epoxy anyway to ensure consistency - and I reckon it gives about a 10% retardation factor in curing times, though as a fringe benefit it seem to extend the 'elastic' time, which makes slicing the excess away a lot simpler.

I daresay it's not a method that's of much use if you tend to only need to stain the glue black, and you have ready supply of spirit stain pigment - but if you want to 'go brown' it's pretty much the only way to get a decent colour match.

Regards,

 

[Chris Peryagh]

On my own Signet oboe I lengthened the bell key barrel so I could fit a low Bb bell vent which meant relocating the lower pillar further down the bell (just above the logo) which in turn meant having to fill in the original pillar hole http://www.clarinetperfection.com/galleryclar/Keywork/CP2/15.jpg.

As this is now located under the key barrel, I filled it in with hard wax, then used a reed to scrape and level it, then using exactly the same method in getting a mirror finish on shoes I polished it by hand buffing with a damp cloth which brought the hard wax up to a bright shine to match the glossy finish of the surrounding plastic.

This is fine if you're not in constant contact with it which will wear out the filler over time, especially if it's only filling shallow imperfections. But if it's in a reasonably inaccessable area, then it's a good and hassle-free cosmetic fix. Similarly with filling in screw holes left in plastic instruments when the thumbrest has been moved, plus it's an easy thing to reinstate the original filled-in holes if the thumbrest has to be put back in its original position later on - the wax can easily be removed by hand with a twist drill.

 

[Gordon (NZ)]

Thanks, Stephen. Interesting info on the mixing.

"I daresay it's not a method that's of much use if you tend to only need to stain the glue black, and you have ready supply of spirit stain pigment - but if you want to 'go brown' it's pretty much the only way to get a decent colour match."

I have always used a variety of powder pigments, including several quite useful browns which I mix to get what I want.

 

[shmuelyosef]

Has anyone ever used ABS rod to fill holes in woodwinds. I have a clarinet that I need to relocate the thumbrest on, so will face this. It occurred to me that ABS threads nicely and is already black. Drill it out to 3/32" and insert the rod, trim flush with jeweler's saw and finish it of.

What's wrong with this picture?