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- 7,657
- Locality
- Near Lutterworth, Leics.
Yes, I have been busy...
Mainly watching my Windows laptop die a slow and painful death after the IE/Adobe hack got to it.
Secondly, entering the world of the MAC with a Macbook Pro Retina. A whole different world indeed.
But I'm (almost) up to speed with the Mac now and so managed to finish my Martin Medalist Tenor "restoration".
I took it to Matt at Connolly-MIR a while back as it was severely dented. If I say he charged me £85 to get it as straight as possible, that should give those in the know an idea of how bad it was... bad!
I'd taken off the lower stack when I handed it over and so when back I decided to strip it, clean, and re-build (my second one, after YTS-23). Once you have done one it is almost a doodle to put them back together.
By strip I mean dis-assemble as I haven't touched the speckled lacquer-worn patina you'll be pleased to hear. The crook is entirely bare, brownish, brass.
As I stripped it and cleaned the pads (Auto-Glym leather reconditioner once again) I also replaced any worn or missing corks, and noted those that looked compressed but didn't replace these yet.
Once rebuilt I checked the interaction of the mechanism and could see that half a dozen corks, although intact, were preventing normal play due to compression. A strip down of the offending areas and re-corking by mainly guesswork sorted these areas.
Confident I hadn't overlooked anything, I put on my Soloist MP and tried a few reeds, Rico Royal 2's being the best somewhat surprisingly. Plays top to bottom with the only problem being low D, but that's down to my not playing tenor so much.
How does it rate next to my Grassi 2000 Professional? Well, it doesn't match the Grassi, but it's easy enough to play and enjoyable. Most of all it's another old Martin saved. Oh... and I have to say what a well constructed horn too. No fear of bending key work on this one. No doubt that is how it's managed to stay leak free apart from some very minor lolly stick adjustment on one or two keys. No re-padding! Hooray!!

Mainly watching my Windows laptop die a slow and painful death after the IE/Adobe hack got to it.
Secondly, entering the world of the MAC with a Macbook Pro Retina. A whole different world indeed.
But I'm (almost) up to speed with the Mac now and so managed to finish my Martin Medalist Tenor "restoration".
I took it to Matt at Connolly-MIR a while back as it was severely dented. If I say he charged me £85 to get it as straight as possible, that should give those in the know an idea of how bad it was... bad!
I'd taken off the lower stack when I handed it over and so when back I decided to strip it, clean, and re-build (my second one, after YTS-23). Once you have done one it is almost a doodle to put them back together.
By strip I mean dis-assemble as I haven't touched the speckled lacquer-worn patina you'll be pleased to hear. The crook is entirely bare, brownish, brass.
As I stripped it and cleaned the pads (Auto-Glym leather reconditioner once again) I also replaced any worn or missing corks, and noted those that looked compressed but didn't replace these yet.
Once rebuilt I checked the interaction of the mechanism and could see that half a dozen corks, although intact, were preventing normal play due to compression. A strip down of the offending areas and re-corking by mainly guesswork sorted these areas.
Confident I hadn't overlooked anything, I put on my Soloist MP and tried a few reeds, Rico Royal 2's being the best somewhat surprisingly. Plays top to bottom with the only problem being low D, but that's down to my not playing tenor so much.
How does it rate next to my Grassi 2000 Professional? Well, it doesn't match the Grassi, but it's easy enough to play and enjoyable. Most of all it's another old Martin saved. Oh... and I have to say what a well constructed horn too. No fear of bending key work on this one. No doubt that is how it's managed to stay leak free apart from some very minor lolly stick adjustment on one or two keys. No re-padding! Hooray!!
