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Message: <blockquote data-quote="mark_addy" data-source="post: 632810" data-attributes="member: 10006">Rather than mess up [USER=8047]@PigSquealer[/USER]  's blog thread, I thought I might post an appeal here to ask him what kind of tenon-expander he uses? I just bought another alto, for stupid reasons.  1) it was very cheap, and 2) it is more-or-less the same instrument which my Dad had at home, which I began on nearly 50 years ago, and which I stupidly hassled him to PX for what turned out to be a rather poor Chinese tenor about 5 or 6 years later. It's a 'Lewin' branded Martin Handcraft stencil, as ours was all that time ago.  It lacks the 'name that will WIN you fame' stamp ours had, but it has the same dark, worn lacquer (ours looked like this is the late 70s!).  I am not sure if ours had a front F or not.  Most importantly, the smell which greeted me when I opened the case took me right back.  I would really have been disappointed had it not smelt like this - it is such a memory!  I think our case had a Bill Lewington sticker in it - it would have been a big deal for Dad to get hold of it in the 60s.   I couldn't get much noise out of it when I picked it up, but here it is with immediate triage - three bits of insulating tape, a strip of paper envelope around the neck cork and an elastic band replacing the uppermost spring on the top stack which is missing and which holds C# open.  And it works, after a fashion, right down to Bb - I am having fun with it.  The elastic band is anchored on the B-C side trill key at one end, which gives it a second starring role besides its regular cameo appearance in 'Footprints' <img src="data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20xmlns%3D%22http%3A%2F%2Fwww.w3.org%2F2000%2Fsvg%22%20viewBox%3D%220%200%2064%2064%22%3E%3Ctext%20x%3D%2250%25%22%20y%3D%2250%25%22%20text-anchor%3D%22middle%22%20dominant-baseline%3D%22central%22%20font-size%3D%2254%22%3E%F0%9F%99%82%3C%2Ftext%3E%3C%2Fsvg%3E" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="22" height="22" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />And the tenon?  Well, the neck is a lovely fit, but the factory-provided brass 'bung' (again, I think a little different in pattern from our old one) was loose.  I expanded it over the end of a motorbike gearbox shaft (started as a good fit...uh oh) with some thin shim wrapped around it (arrghh, too much!) and ended up mega tight.  So I took it down again with a linisher.  I am glad this thing is mine and not someone else's.  Expanders on the web also seem like slow tapers on bits of steel with knurled bits to hold - I could make one of these quite easily (small lathe) but it seems to me that it will only expand the far end of the thing you push it up, whereas something more complex and expanding might be required to expand a broader 'patch' - like the things sold for making car exhaust pipe, sadly too big for this job.  I'll probably not need to do this again, but it would be nice to know.</blockquote>