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One of my wife's best friends called the other day saying she had an issue with her Keilwerth soprano. More precisely with playing B/Bb and suspected a leak somewhere. I offered to take a look and so she came by yesterday.
I couldn't spot the issue right away, but the B did not always sound right. Checked for leaks a first time but couldn't see any obvious culprit. Play tested again! Occasional trouble once again. So I sent her away to have a glass of wine with my wife while I continued to check the horn. Then bingo, the leak was there, on the high C tonehole/key. The one that has an interesting double key arrangement with an auxilary key over it that apparently only works for the C# with the octave key. Something I had never seen before.
Anyways, the issue came from a tiny bit of cork under the adjustment screw that's linked to the B key that was loose. See on the picture below where the arrow points.
I first tried to re-use that piece of cork, but it vanished as I tried to pick it up, so I cut another of a similar thickness and glued it, but it went loose again because the adjustment screw doesn't hit the cork in the middle, but sideways, so it tends to loosen the cork. So I finally unscrewed the adjustment screw (!) and fitted a thicker piece of cork. Not an ideal solution, but it works. So far!
Since I do not see that many sopranos, as I'm not a pro repairer like some members here, I was curious to look at this horn and see how it was built, etc. I must say that I'm not impressed and I hope that it's not always like this. One of the palm keys is completely off and the pad barely catches the tonehole. So I compared it with my current reference, being my Yamaha 475 and I find it much better designed from a mechanical point of view. That is important on the long term to keep your horn going and I'm starting to understand why Yamahas have a reputation of holding their setup better than many others.
If I take the current issue as an example, above is an image of my soprano and the same adjustment screws are 1) bigger, 2) resting on a larger flat surface and I guess that alone keeps it from going wrong too easily.
I play tested this Keilwerth, to ensure my fix held on and I must say that I'm not at all convinced. Of course, I'm not an expert and its certainly normal at my level of expertise to feel uncomfortable with another horn, but the bottom line is I'm not tempted to switch at all.
I couldn't spot the issue right away, but the B did not always sound right. Checked for leaks a first time but couldn't see any obvious culprit. Play tested again! Occasional trouble once again. So I sent her away to have a glass of wine with my wife while I continued to check the horn. Then bingo, the leak was there, on the high C tonehole/key. The one that has an interesting double key arrangement with an auxilary key over it that apparently only works for the C# with the octave key. Something I had never seen before.
Anyways, the issue came from a tiny bit of cork under the adjustment screw that's linked to the B key that was loose. See on the picture below where the arrow points.
I first tried to re-use that piece of cork, but it vanished as I tried to pick it up, so I cut another of a similar thickness and glued it, but it went loose again because the adjustment screw doesn't hit the cork in the middle, but sideways, so it tends to loosen the cork. So I finally unscrewed the adjustment screw (!) and fitted a thicker piece of cork. Not an ideal solution, but it works. So far!
Since I do not see that many sopranos, as I'm not a pro repairer like some members here, I was curious to look at this horn and see how it was built, etc. I must say that I'm not impressed and I hope that it's not always like this. One of the palm keys is completely off and the pad barely catches the tonehole. So I compared it with my current reference, being my Yamaha 475 and I find it much better designed from a mechanical point of view. That is important on the long term to keep your horn going and I'm starting to understand why Yamahas have a reputation of holding their setup better than many others.
If I take the current issue as an example, above is an image of my soprano and the same adjustment screws are 1) bigger, 2) resting on a larger flat surface and I guess that alone keeps it from going wrong too easily.
I play tested this Keilwerth, to ensure my fix held on and I must say that I'm not at all convinced. Of course, I'm not an expert and its certainly normal at my level of expertise to feel uncomfortable with another horn, but the bottom line is I'm not tempted to switch at all.