Tech/maintenance goldplating advice please

[rhysonsax]

That sounds pretty poor service and communication.

Last night was big band night for me and I spoke to Will Spencer (the trumpet maker & repairer) about which firm he uses for plating.

As well as Lamberts, he mentioned a company called Fox in Sydenham. A quick Google has turned up the following:

Steve Fox
Fox Plating
Unit 3
Maybrey Works
Worsley Bridge Road
Sydenham
SE26 5AZ
TEL: 0208 663 6444

There is also another Fox Plating, but seems not to be in Sydenham that Will mentioned:

20 Franklin Industrial Estate Unit D Franklin Road
London
SE20 8HW
Electro Plating
Tel: 02086598866

Neither of these seems to have a website that I could find, but it might be worth a phone call to the first.

All the best

Rhys

 

[AlanU]

Thanks Justin, I will take a look see.....

Rhys, I started with clarinet as an 18 year old, self taught and from my Mother's catalogue. Thus I had one the early chinese clarinets! It was wood, cant recall the name and played fine. Indeed I gave it to an ex-brother in law and his teacher said it was good. After I bought a Regent and got on with it. We used to mess around with a sporting buddy of mine and a jazz afficianado playing alto and guitar respectively. Not Good! Also went and saw many of the jazz greats. Ornette Coleman, Duke Ellington, Stan Tracey, Don Rendell, Ronnie Scott, Humph, Bruce Turner, Bud Freeman etc etc. We were lucky the jazz guy knew people and we had a thriving jazz event at Camberley Cricket Club once or twice a year with top names. Also The Cambridge in Camberley had a jazz club where the good old British brigade appeared often, such as Acker Bilk, Kenny Ball, Ken Colyer,Chris Barber, even Bob Kerr and his Whoopee Band. Playing wise I went backwards for years and dabbled. However I rekindled when re-married in 2000 and bought a tenor. My clarinet playing was alwayas reasonable with a good tone and this was a natural progression. Chopped Tenor in for TJ signature model which is a pretty good piece of kit, althoug I know Pete Thomas is unsure. Finish is very good, made from phosphur bronze and silver plated keywork. Mellow tone and good action. Since I started buying clarinets off Ebay and refurbishing them, then bought a new copper alto and black soprano, both Chinese and both very good prices. I was suprised at their quality and have had many "discussion" via SOTW regarding these. sold both on for handsome profits and then found Buescher Aristocrat and Hawkes & Son, both alto's. I would say I am semi competent, with fairly good tone. You appear to have had much more involvement and playing with others helps hugely. I am about to refurb a couple of my old simple system clarinets which are in gorgeus woods and see how they go. Oh forgot, of course the reason for starting the thread, the stencilled Beuscher 20A in Bundy form. This will come up looking really good and I am hopeful it will play at least as well as the Aristo.

There appears to be consoderably less quality on Ebay at the moment, which is oposite of what I expected when money is in short supply. always a good deal somewhere you have to look, look again then keep looking until it makes sense.!

One last point, I recently bought an Otto Link STM for my alto. Many suggest this is a poor marriage, yet for me it plays very very well. Much better than my Meyer. Have you or anyone used one and what is the prognosis? It was such a good price I could not resist!

Having restored my 'Melody Master' Martin Handcraft stencil (including Roo-pads which are great) I was really surprised that it preferred the STM 5* over my Meyer (large chamber, long lay).

What improved things even more, for me, was substituting the Link ligature with a dark Rovner.

I hear that the new Otto Links are a bit variable, I bought mine about twenty five years ago.

 

[Young Col]

Cromer, Rhys, not sure if it helps, but recalling days of youth around Sydenham and with the help of a map, the Franklin Road Fox Plating in SE20 (Penge) is nearly Sydenham and is only a mile or so from the Fox Plating in Worsley Bridge Road (which is Lower Sydenham, almost Bellingham). Could be different works of the same company.
The delights of London suburbs, eh?
Colin

 

[rhysonsax]

Cromer, Rhys, not sure if it helps, but recalling days of youth around Sydenham and with the help of a map, the Franklin Road Fox Plating in SE20 (Penge) is nearly Sydenham and is only a mile or so from the Fox Plating in Worsley Bridge Road (which is Lower Sydenham, almost Bellingham). Could be different works of the same company.
The delights of London suburbs, eh?
Colin

I did wonder whether they were the same company and one address is actually an old one. I think it is a really small company and so likely to have only one site.

Rhys

 

[Young Col]

Quite likely Rhys. Unfortunately I don't know the area that intimately these days and I'm not braving the traffic on the jokingly called South Circular Road to find out!
Colin

 

[JasonC]

Hello,

I do Gold plating myself and can say that it would be a fairly big job to do a whole Sax.

The main thing is the preparation, and although you have already done some preparation it will most likely need more to get a really good finish, any slight mark or scratch will show even once it's plated so these must be removed at the start. Once the finish has been done properly to the sax and all the bits (if you wanted the keys etc doing) it would then need plating in another metal first before it can be Gold plated. Then you have the price of the Gold plating solution on top of the labour done already and I would estimate about £100 at cost price for the Gold, so add a profit onto this plus the labour costs and its going to start and get expensive! I reckon £900 is probably about right, maybe a little more than what I would charge but I don't do it as a business.

I myself was thinking of doing some Gold plating on my new TJ Classic Horn but it's too new for me to start doing anything like that to it yet!