From: Ken Shaw
Date: Fri, 27 May 2005 06:56:53 EDT
Subject: [CB] Slipping Contra Pegs
The Leblanc contras (or at least my paperclip BBb from the
mid-1960s) have a smooth peg that fits through a short cylinder on the
body that is split vertically. The split is squeezed by a screw
with a fairly small wing nut. It's difficult, and painful, to get
the nut tight enough to prevent the nickel plated surfaces from sliding.
I did two things. First, I roughened the area on the rod
that is inside the cylinder. Second, I get a length of silicone
surgical tubing and put it over the wings on the nut. The
combination provides plenty of tightness and friction.
Later Leblancs have a largish metal knob instead of the wing
nut. For these, people wrap heavy rubber bands around the outside
of the knob.
Unfortunately, putting grooves around the rod won't help much,
since the screw doesn't go through to fit into them.
My Buffet bass clarinet does have a screw that goes through the
non-split cylinder and presses against the rod. In that case, any
kind of flattening of the rod will help. My rod has conical
indentations every 1/4" or so, for the screw tip to fit into.
On the Vito, any competent repair tech can get or even fabricate
a rod holder and silver-solder it to the side of the bell. If the
rod that comes with it has no bumper on the bottom, get a Super Ball
(which has the best coefficient of friction), drill a hole about 1/4 of
the way through it and put it on the end of the rod. The Super
Ball material is brittle. Keep it from splitting by making the
hole just slightly smaller than the rod.
Good luck.
Ken Shaw
***End of Contrabass Digest***