I got a Dixon A & G a few months ago. I like the G very much, but after playing the A for a while now, I realized it wasn’t quite as nice as the Dixon A I had been playing (a loner from aventuria).
Now the Dixon A seems to be clogging more than before. I looked at the fipple and saw that if I look thru the windway, I can see where some glue–I assume it’s glue, it’s sort of a hard, bubbly mass–is stuck, right underneath the fipple block. I have no idea if I’m using the correct terms here, but it looks like when the fipple block was glued in, some glue leaked down and is sort of globbing up the windway. Could this be causing clogging? Or maybe it’s normal?
I got this from the Whistle Shop, not from Tony, just FYI. And it plays so nice MOST of the time. Any thoughts?
You didn’t get much help on this one Kar, did you? If you can scrape that stuff out, go for it. It certainly can’t be helping. I think I remember other posts about clogging, and the usual answer seems to be to develop the habit of claering the stuff out after every tune.
X-Acto makes a lovely little knife with a blade that looks like a really thin chisel. It will likely be the ideal tool for removing your bubbly mass. Occasionally, I get a run of epoxy in the instruments I build, and that’s what I use to remove it. A big advantage of this particular knife is that it’s so sharp, it leaves a very smooth place wherever it cuts - doubly good because you want a smooth airway!
Cheers, good luck!
Bill Whedon