I purchased two metal tubes of shellac for $16 each.  Vendor also thought boy should use a re-solder air torch instead of a butane torch for greater safety.  I completely agree.

We are currently working on a hard rubber clarinet.  I gave a section a little polish with paste wax and it looks great.  I read that leather black dye can be used to restore hard rubber that has turned green.  So many tricks, so little time to learn.

I applied a coat of USMC Black leather dye on a stripped section of a hard rubber clarinet tonight.  Looked very bad, much worse than before the treatment.  Liked streaked flat black with no definition.  Felt that I ruined the instrument, which is a very unusual feeling for me.  Had no clue how long the dye should be kept on the surface, so I gave it two hours.  Rubbed dye off with a cotton cloth.  The body looks terrific.  

The craft uses a special tool to remove tenon joint corks without damaging the underlying wood.  I have not been able to locate one of those tools for sale.  The local hardware store is giving away a combination paint can and bottle top opener which works perfectly.

An update on the clarinet project.  I have now found that there was not a standard on clarinet pad diameters (and thicknesses).  Sets of “generic” fish bladder pads are cheap, but finding the frequent pad that will not accommodate the provided key pad holder necessitates another package delivery “across the pond.”   No way to run an efficient rail road.  Merchants by pass this obstacle by the purchase of a boxed pad assortment, which costs scores of times more than my purchase price of a used clarinet.

What to do?  

I think that expanded pvc foam has the makings of a good resilient pad, but the chlorine component of the compound prevents the use of a laser cnc (per my inquiry on another thread on this forum).  Punch and die sets are not economically available in the range of diameters needed.  Cricut has a “Maker” product that could cut 3 mm stock while using a computer driven sketch that seems ideal for my purpose, but costs about $500.  

I do have a mini milling machine and a rotary table, but attempts to hold and mill small circles was very inefficient.  Slicing pvc foam using a chuck held exacto knife seemed easy but proved too flexible for consistent cuts.

Miniature carbide blades used in cricut and Roland vinyl cutters are surprisingly inexpensive and work well when chucked.  An inexpensive import rotary table vice makes for quick foam material holding.  See photo below.

@peter and others.  Good thought but I do not think I would save much time over current method.  I forgot to mention that I substituted a Allen headed bolt for the handle in the rotary table and actuate with a variable speed portable drill.  The upper section of the clarinet uses two diameter groups of about five pads each. The rest of the lot are all uniquely sized (about 18 total pads).  I ended up making 3 sets of pads (for a Vito plastic clarinet) in less than two hours.   Not an economic use of time, but enjoyable.

I likely have over 60 clarinet makes and models.  I am going to catalog pad diameters and thicknesses from now on to set up a database.  

The student wants to use colored plastic for the pads, and I found blue, red, and yellow for him.  White works for me.  

An update regarding making pvc foam clarinet pads.  

I purchased (now several) used cricut computerized cloth cutting machines.  The material is attached to a sticky plastic pad and is cut with a miniature carbide blade in a  rigid frame.  The manufacturer likely sells the machine at a loss; but gathers revenue from cartridges containing fonts and shapes.

My need is for precisely sized circles, and the long list of cartridges had nothing of use  (the machine has a very gross sizing dial which is of no use to me).

I noticed that the cricut had a form of USB port so I had hopes of tricking it to accept graphic content from something other than a sole source cartridge.  It can, and inexpensive software to do so is commercially available in the name of “Sure Cuts Alot 2.”

The software runs on later (to me) versions of Windows (it happily loaded onto a Windows 7 laptop in my possession).  The firmware of the cricut needs to be updated so that it will recognise the software and this simple procedure took 6 minutes per machine.  The machine needs a cartridge (of any flavor) to accept commands from the software.  Thus far, I think that it will do precisely what I need.  I can even nest hole cutting so I can cut a small hole within a larger circle (the donut shape required for flute and saxophone pads).  

More complex shapes (such as required for a gasket) are likely beyond the ability of the software.  But files can be imported (I will likely require an intermediate program to convert .dwg format from Autocad).