How To Clean An Otto Link Mouthpiece

Cleaning saxophone and clarinet mouthpieces

Surely there's zero to cleaning mouthpieces - a drop of detergent in some lukewarm water (or common cold water if it'southward a vintage ebonite mouthpiece - hot water volition plow some ebonite mouthpieces greenish, and the older the piece is the more likely it is to be susceptible), a bit of gentle scrub with a soft mouthpiece brush - how difficult can it be?

From the country of some of the mouthpieces I see I reckon some people must find it incredibly hard.
But it's non merely water that gets blown into the mouthpiece; there are oils, fats, salts, starches, sugars etc. - and some of these can shrug off the effects of your usual cleaning authorities.

Calcium (or more than correctly, Calcium Carbonate) is 1 the worst offenders - small deposits attach themselves to the walls of the bore, and petty by little, day by 24-hour interval, they build upwardly. It's exactly the same stuff that forms in the bottom of your kettle, otherwise known as scale (or limescale, to give it its full proper noun).
Manifestly, regular cleaning can irksome this build-upwardly process but fifty-fifty the most fastidious player will suffer from some degree of calibration build up. More often than not the problem is most astute when buying secondhand mouthpieces. You lot may well clean your mouthpiece out on a regular basis, but that doesn't mean anybody else does.

Have a look at this...

This is a Boosey & Hawkes 926 clarinet mouthpiece - it'due south at least twoscore years old, and looks like it was played every unmarried day. Someone loved information technology enough to repair it when the tip bankrupt off (though they didn't beloved it enough to take it to someone who could do a proper repair).
Run across that white stuff inside on the floor? That'due south the scale build-up. It adheres to the mouthpiece and refuses to be shifted even by fairly brisk scrubbing. Even worse, the more there is the more will form - and information technology provides an excellent surface for bacteria to breed on, plus information technology affects the response of the mouthpiece.

You can't attack the scale with an abrasive, or a abrupt implement - information technology volition only event in scoring the diameter of the mouthpiece. What'south really needed is a chemic that dissolves the scale and leaves the mouthpiece untouched - just which chemical?
In that location are plenty of products on the market for removing calcium carbonate deposits - simply very few of these products are suitable for use on mouthpieces and many of them will ruin the mouthpiece birthday. Most of these limescale removing products are based on acids - limescale is an alkaline substance, acid will dissolve information technology.
What'southward required is an acid that's relatively mild in activeness, that will attack the calibration only not the mouthpiece.

There are two chemicals commonly touted as being suitable for the task - and both are readily available to the general public; domestic Hydrogen Peroxide Solution (nine%) and vinegar. Hydrogen Peroxide is available from your pharmacist - information technology's used equally a mild disinfectant for skin wounds...if you have your ears pierced this is the stuff you put on the wound to prevent it condign infected. I'm going to endeavor both and see what happens. I'm besides going to endeavor a few other products that I've seen recommended by diverse players to meet how well they perform in comparison.

I placed the mouthpiece higher up in a jar containing Hydrogen Peroxide. It immediately began to gently buzz, which looked promising. It carried on fizzing for quite some considerable fourth dimension - so much so that I got bored of watching it and decided to carry on with the second test.

Here's a Selmer S80 D alto saxophone mouthpiece. At that place's virtually the same amount of scale build-up as in the clarinet mouthpiece - it looks less as it'due south spread out over a larger surface expanse, and there's a fleck in the bore than can't be seen in the photo.

And here's the same mouthpiece later 30 minutes immersed in white malt vinegar.

You lot can quite clearly see that the calibration deposits have gone. What you can also see is that the mouthpiece has taken on a deadening greenish hue. This is due to the activeness of the vinegar on the Ebonite that the mouthpiece is synthetic of.
This does no great harm to the mouthpiece, but doesn't exactly look terribly attractive. It's possible to remove this 'bloom', but it'southward a task all-time left to a repairer as it requires the use of abrasive compounds.

From my observation of the activity of the vinegar it seems that information technology appears to soften upwards the scale rather faster than it dissolves it. Evidently y'all could look until the vinegar dissolved the scale of its ain accord - but by that fourth dimension the mouthpiece would exist a keen deal greener - and I suspect that a degree of softening of the ebonite would take place, at least on the surface.

With this in heed, I repeated the experiment - but this time I concentrated the effects of the vinegar in the appropriate spot.

I've simply soaked a wad of cotton wool in the vinegar and placed it in the mouthpiece's window. I so propped the mouthpiece upwards so that the wad lay flat and the vinegar didn't dribble off into the bore and left it for x minutes.
I then removed the wad, and with the aid of a cotton bud soaked in vinegar gently rubbed off all the calibration deposits.
There was a very slight greening of the ebonite in the diameter - merely by no means as much as the previous experiment. I found that ten minutes was quite sufficient to clean this moderately scaled mouthpiece - more heavily encrusted examples would need another dose with the wad. Circumscribed the vinegar to the bore meant that the exterior terminate of the mouthpiece remained untouched.

Some 2 hours have passed since I placed the clarinet mouthpiece in the Hydrogen Peroxide. I took information technology out and examined it.
This chemical has a unlike action to the vinegar - instead of softening the scale information technology seems to slowly dissolve it. I wonder how much of this is due to the modest amount of Phosphoric acrid the product contains? Compared with the photo at the top of the page you tin run into a considerable reduction in the scale deposits. I tried rubbing the deposits off with a cotton wool bud, but to no avail - this chemic simply has to be left to do its work in its own time.
You may find too that the ebonite hasn't really gone any greener than it already was. I did notice a very slight greening outcome, but information technology wasn't anywhere near equally much equally seen on the vinegar treated piece.
Just out of curiosity I cleaned the SA80 slice and popped it into the Hydrogen Peroxide. After 15 minutes or so it had gone green again - so it appears that some types of ebonite are more than susceptible to discolouration than others. It could too but be that ebonite tends to deteriorate over time depending on what surround it'southward been kept in - a exam slice of new ebonite showed no discolouration afterward sixty minutes immersed in the vinegar.

I and then tested a few other cleaning products.
The first of these was a kettle cleaner. This came in a small bottle, priced about £ii, and contained a solution of 40% (w/v) formic acrid.
The instructions required the solution to be tipped into a kettle with a cupful or and so of boiling water. Clearly this isn't an option for an ebonite mouthpiece - so I used the solution peachy and cold. And hither's the event on the remaining deposits on the 926 mouthpiece after x minutes.
Pretty much all the scale has gone - though information technology worked in much the same way as the vinegar, requiring a piddling gentle help from a cotton bud. There was no noticeable greening of the mouthpiece.
Much more noticeable though were the fumes given off - they were really quite unpleasant (in that location was a warning about this on the bottle).
I did the usual with the poor old SA80 mouthpiece - it went greenish again.

Baking soda has been suggested equally a ways of cleaning mouthpieces, which seems rather counterintuitive to me every bit it's an alkali (in fact information technology's less acidic than water) but I tested it anyway.
Here we tin can see a rather dirty Otto Link baritone sax mouthpiece with a pocket-size coating of scale. A paste mix of water and blistering soda was made up and then drizzled onto the scale and left for an 60 minutes. As y'all can come across from the before and afterward shots there's inappreciably any difference at all, even with a saturated solution of the stuff. If there's any merit in using baking soda it probable lies in its action as a scouring amanuensis when used with a small brush.

Another popular suggestion is cola. Cola contains phosphoric acid, and many other fizzy soft drinks comprise citric acid.
Yous may well accept tried that old fox of dropping a dirty sometime copper coin into a glass of cola overnight in order to clean it upwards - when y'all lift it out in the morning it'due south all bright and shiny (well, less dirty anyway).

These drinks should work in the aforementioned style as vinegar, though less vigorously as the concentration of acid is slightly weaker. It should be noted that, in general, diet fizzy soft drinks are less acidic than their total-sugar counterparts (and are about every bit acidic every bit red wine).
To see how effective cola is when compared to vinegar I rigged up a simple test. I've sealed upwardly the bore of the mouthpiece with adhesive tack and divided the window downwards the middle. The left side was filled with fresh non-diet cola, the right with plain malt vinegar. The piece was left to soak for an hour at room temperature.

Equally you can run into it'south a clear win for the vinegar - the section on the correct is completely clean, the department on the left is niggling better than the dividing line which was covered during the test and received no treatment at all.

For the final exam I tried a dental product - denture cleaning tablets.
I bought the strongest tablets I could discover - they claimed to remove heavy staining from dentures in ten minutes.
I filled a small jar with hand-hot water, popped a cleaning tablet in, and so added a mouthpiece.
Things fizzed for quite a while - simply this turned out to exist the tablet dissolving.
After 10 minutes I examined the mouthpiece - no effect whatsoever.
I gave it another half hr. Cypher.
I gave it another hour - still no effect.
I'thou still checking it even as I write this article several hours afterward. At that place's some brown scum on the surface of the solution, but the scale deposits are looking solid (if perchance a trivial whiter).

To sum upwardly and then: Hydrogen Peroxide, non-diet cola and vinegar did the job. Hydrogen Peroxide took past far the longest to attain a make clean mouthpiece - and because of this information technology's off-white to assume that the whole mouthpiece would demand to exist immersed in the solution. A stronger solution might piece of work faster...though I'thousand yet inclined to think that it'south the acid in the solution that's doing the work with regard to the scale.
Cola had a slightly better effect and acted faster, but plain malt vinegar beat everything else hands down.
Vinegar also acted fast to soften the deposits, and because of this it's possible to limit its contact with the mouthpiece past using a wad of cotton fiber wool soaked in the solution to get things moving and so employ a cotton bud (or Q-tip) to rub the scale off.
Proprietary limescale removers do the chore - but the production of baneful fumes and their by and large poisonous nature makes them risky and unpleasant to use.
The dental products and baking soda simply didn't work.

Another conclusion that can be drawn from these tests is that the well-meaning communication to 'dunk the mouthpiece' in diverse solutions is something of a risky proffer.
Plenty of people have reported no apparent damage coming to the mouthpiece when left in a cup of cola, but a keen bargain depends on what the mouthpiece is fabricated of and what the state of the cloth is. Some ebonite seems more than susceptible to greening than others, and prolonged exposure to calorie-free and heat tends to exacerbate this trend (so older pieces are more probable to endure). My advice is to play information technology condom - don't dunk - have the time and trouble to used soaked wads that can be placed in the mouthpiece'south window unless you're absolutely and 100% sure that your mouthpiece will not be affected by complete immersion (such as a basic Yamaha mouthpiece, which is made of a hard plastic).

That said, there is one reward of consummate immersion, and that is that it will ensure consummate coverage of the bore. This is important, as there can exist just as much - if not more - scale build-up in the areas you can't easily see. As you tin encounter here, the scale deposits in the window are scattered around...but just within the bore they're starting to grade a more than solid coating. The simplest solution is to poke some cotton wool wool downwardly the bore before you fill the window with information technology, and this will draw your chosen solution correct inside the mouthpiece.

Although I used white malt vinegar I tin see no reason why another sorts of vinegar would not work just also - such as common brown malt vinegar, as found on your chips (or fries, depending on where in the world you are) or cider vinegar. If in whatsoever dubiousness look on the label for the acidity - information technology will normally be in the region of 4% to half-dozen%. Balsamic vinegar is non suitable.
As for metal mouthpieces, I did attempt a couple in both the Hydrogen Peroxide and the vinegar. Patently color change is not an issue - but metals tend to react adversely to acids, and with this in mind the speed with which the vinegar softens the scale makes it a viable suggestion.
You can as well apply citric acid in the ratio of i heaped teaspoon of powder to 110ml of water (or two teaspons per cup of water). For more than details, see the article on brass & ebonite versus acid.

If you lot're more concerned with sterilising your mouthpiece so I would recommend washing it in lukewarm h2o with detergent, and if you're feeling especially fragile you can requite it a sloosh with some antibacterial mouthwash. Rinse off subsequently a minute or so. (This stuff is good for slooshing out sax crooks too, which can go just as gunked upwards as mouthpieces.
I've used some of those antibacterial surface cleaners with success (Dettox is a good one) - though intendance should be taken to avoid the ones that contain bleach or 'grease-busting' agents...they may exist rather harsh. In that location'due south no need to be any more fastidious than that - the risks of catching something nasty from a mouthpiece are the aforementioned as those in sharing a cup, just employ your common sense.
If you lot're still worried, think about what'southward on all those coins in your pocket...and have a read of this article.

Source: http://www.shwoodwind.co.uk/Testing/Cleaning_mouthpieces.htm

Posted by: mosleylerning.blogspot.com

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