I just bought a couple of Asian gold-plated mouthpieces to use as 
blanks. The alto was branded ChinaStar and the soprano was HuaStar, 
although GoldStar is another name I've seen on a few Asian 
mouthpieces. Both had the kind of problems to be expected: arched 
tables, bad machine marks, crooked facings, etc. The tip opening on 
the soprano was around .048" and about .060" on the alto - I didn't 
even try to play them before heading to the workbench.

The gold plate came off the table with one swipe across the back of 
the 2000 grit paper. A little polishing with some Maas polish and the 
gold plating was gone from the entire mouthpiece! The result is a 
nice looking silver mouthpiece but I have no real hop for the silver 
plate to stand up very long.

The Link-style ligature that came with the alto piece is very flimsy 
and the pressure plate is too wide for an alto reed. The soprano lig 
is a two-screw type that works just fine. The caps are ok except for 
sharp edges that need to be smoothed.

I think that these are supposed to be Link STM clones and the chamber 
design looks good. They'll make good blanks, but I don't know if the 
$35 a piece is ok compared to those sold by Babbit, et al. Has 
anybody bought "real" blanks lately from Babbit or Runyon?

 

The question is, when does a mouthpiece cease to be a blank, and become 
a "work in progress"?  How much completion do you want?

 

Do you want the table and facing machined on?  At Runyon, this is done 
in one step.  They have fixtures for each mouthpiece that holds them 
precisely in the facing machine.

 

The metal mouthpieces are completed up to putting on the table/facing, 
bite plate area machined, essentially finished, whereupon it is sent to 
the plater.  After coming back from the plater, the bite plate is fitted 
and glued in.  Finally, a spoiler is fitted, and a lig and cap added and 
it is packaged.

 

So, the question is, just what is it you want to purchase?  The raw 
blank, as it falls out of the injection molding machine is quite a way 
from being a workable mouthpiece.

 

I'll try to get some pictures for you.

 

Paul Coats

 



stencilmann wrote:

> I just bought a couple of Asian gold-plated mouthpieces to use as
> blanks. The alto was branded ChinaStar and the soprano was HuaStar,
> although GoldStar is another name I've seen on a few Asian
> mouthpieces. Both had the kind of problems to be expected: arched
> tables, bad machine marks, crooked facings, etc. The tip opening on
> the soprano was around .048" and about .060" on the alto - I didn't
> even try to play them before heading to the workbench.
>
> The gold plate came off the table with one swipe across the back of
> the 2000 grit paper. A little polishing with some Maas polish and the
> gold plating was gone from the entire mouthpiece! The result is a
> nice looking silver mouthpiece but I have no real hop for the silver
> plate to stand up very long.
>
> The Link-style ligature that came with the alto piece is very flimsy
> and the pressure plate is too wide for an alto reed. The soprano lig
> is a two-screw type that works just fine. The caps are ok except for
> sharp edges that need to be smoothed.
>
> I think that these are supposed to be Link STM clones and the chamber
> design looks good. They'll make good blanks, but I don't know if the
> $35 a piece is ok compared to those sold by Babbit, et al. Has
> anybody bought "real" blanks lately from Babbit or Runyon?
>
>
>
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