Strathon Mouthpiece/Ligature
January 18, 2008 in Articles
Hello, I recently purchased a strathon mouthpiece on ebay and unfortunately for me it did not come with a ligature, if you have seen the mouthpiece it has an adjustable baffle, which makes putting a regular lig on it almost impossible, does anyone know where I can find one of these ligatures or what type of ligature i could use or something i could use as a ligature? For now I have been using scotch tape which works well but is a pain to have to put the reed on every time, I also tried velcro strips which work decently but the reed seems too loose. This is a great mouthpiece, I really like the sound I get from it. Am I out of luck, stuck with using scotch tape as a ligature? Thanks
E: “Looking at my Strathon, it seems that one could construct some sort of ligature for it. The one that comes with it is sort of semi-circular, with ‘wings’ that point inwards and that would go into the grooves on the mouthpiece. The actual ligature plate seems to be nothing special, but there is a screw adjust on it. I would say a little trip to Home Depot could solve some of this. I’ll upload some pictures of that would help. I don’t think anything sold today would really work, unless maybe you want to get an Otto Link ligature and tweak that to work with the Strathon. It sorta looks like it would, if you give it a little persuading with a pair of pliers 
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CharlieHull said on April 22, 2010
Soon after purchasing my King Super 20 Silver Bell tenor in 1965 I bought a Strathon Adjustotone and have been playing it ever since. I have a bag of other mouthpieces (Link, Larson, Brilhart, etc.) acquired in search of the Holy Grail of tones, but always return to the Strathon.
The Strathon ligature has screw-adjustable tension but lacks the flexibility of band-type ligatures, so I’ve used Rovner clarinet ligatures successfully, since I don’t change the slider during performances. With the slider all the way toward the tip you get the brightest sound, but the highs are out of balance with the lows, so I leave the slider one notch in as a compromise. I never move the slider farther out as I don’t care for the smokier tone.
I’ve also used an Eddie Daniels clarinet ligature. Have also glued a thin rubber layer to the Strathon lig to cushion the contact with the reed, but that doesn’t leave enough room to slide my Fibracell reeds into place.
Before getting caps, I had slightly overlapping front teeth and had worn a deep groove into the Strathon. Fearing ruin of the mouthpiece I purchased a new Strathon, but it’s different than my old one in shape and sound, so I don’t use it. I filled the tooth-groove in the old one with black epoxy and filed it down to shape and it’s like new again.
I’ll e-mail you so you can give me your address, and will mail you the ligature from my new Strathon.
CharlieHull said on April 22, 2010
After posting my first comment, I did some googling and found the following source for purchase of a Strathon ligature.
http://www.fermatamusic.com/shop/index.php?manufacturers_id=168&osCsid=0f83775f8d401263baf2bf9f5a971322
Charlie Hull