Fred had emailed me directly with some questions about how I band cracked shanks.

Fred, sorry, but I tried replying to you but I kept getting the Daemon-Mailer bounces from your email address.

I thought this would be of general interest to all of you, as well as answering Fred's questions:

This was not one of Fred's questions, but I'll mention, there is no way to glue a cracked shank.  You can't clean out old cork grease in an effort to clean it well enough for good glue adhesion.  You can't spread the crack without risking further cracking.  There is no adhesive made that will bond a cracked shank due to the type of glue joint and the forces applied.  The only solution is a band of some sort.

This is what I do:

I cut the inside of the aluminum tube to fit the shank.  I don't cut the shank at all.  If the shank is cylindrical, or close, I just cut the ID to be a little larger.  If there is a taper, I cut a tapered ID on the aluminum tube.  Stop every so often and test fit the mouthpiece into the tube without removing from the lathe.

Once that is good, using a rounded nose carbide bit (use the type that has the triangular carbides that screw onto the holder), to get a smoother finish, I dress the outside with a few light passes to give a bright, near mirror finish.  Then I "part off" the band from the rest of the tube.

Or I may, after parting off the band, use steel wool by hand to give a brushed type finish. 

I fit the aluminum tube, and it needs to have a little clearance, onto the mouthpiece.  I put it on, and then use vinyl tape (electrical tape) to mask off the rest of the mouthpiece, getting a good seal along the edge of the tape. I do not want to get epoxy smears on the rest of the mouthpiece.  I also mask off the outside of the band.

Put 5 minute epoxy on the outside of the shank AND inside the band.  Push them together.  With epoxy on the mouthpiece and in the band there is no chance of pushing epoxy out and leaving an unsupported gap between the band and shank.  That space must have full epoxy support between the band and shank all around so the mouthpiece shank cannot expand and crack further.

After pushing together, I wipe off excess epoxy and then clean with alcohol and paper towel, getting off as much excess as possible.  When the epoxy is almost hard, quite stiff but you can still move the stirring stick on the mixing pad, I remove the tape from the mouthpiece and band and begin any final cleaning with alcohol.

That's it!

Paul