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Tool Spotlight: Adjustable Oboe 8ve Box Remover (FF3)

2nd March 2022

In our latest ‘Tool Spotlight’ for Wind & Brass Technicians we feature the FF3 Adjustable Oboe 8ve box remover. An essential tool for anyone offering Oboe repairs, and a tool that has a lesser known second use…

Why Is It Useful?

Many trainee Repairers may recall seeing this tool for Oboe octave boxes hanging on a repairers tool board and admiring its specialised design. It is a true example of having the tools for the trade. The beginner repairer will soon learn the threads of 8ve boxes can start leaking and do need re-greasing every now and then. They also clog up and are easily cleaned out when removed from the body as part of a service.

How It Works

This elegant tool’s threaded ring opens or closes the spacing between the pointed tips to fit any make and model of Oboe. However, the useful nature of this tool doesn’t end there…

In fact it is also particularly useful for vintage Flutes. Modern Flutes are generally set up with a soldered-in spud in the key cup which holds a female thread. When the pad is in, place a washer is placed on the face of the pad and a screw feeds through the washer and into the spud securing the pad in place.

Older models of Flute are sometimes found to have a threaded bar soldered into the back of the key cup, and then a retaining disk with a central threaded hole threads onto the bar and holds the pad in place. These discs sometimes have no way of unscrewing other than the friction of your finger. However, you find some with two small nicks drilled into the disc. These two notches are for your 8ve box remover to do that final loosening or tightening of your pad retaining disc.