Pics of C-Melody Restoration

[rs2sensen]

I threw some pics of my c-melody "restoration" on a quick website...take note:

http://www.cmelody.rsensen.com

The "original" pics make the sax look better than it did when I got it, it looked much worse.

The "final" pics don't look as good as it really does, because my lighting sucks and I'm not good at taking pictures! haha

 

[ken]

Nice project rs2sensen.

Is that silver finish shiney or buff/frosted?

How does it play?

 

[RedBottom]

rs, is there any chance of you writing all this up - a sort of technical diary type of thing?

I have a C-Mel in need of restoration, and since it only cost me about the same as yours cost you, I'm thinking of having a bash at it myself. The most I've ever done to a sax is to tighten the odd screw, so I'm what you might call a restoration virgin, and I'd be really interested in knowing how you went about the whole project. Pix are great, but of course they don't tell the whole story.

 

[paulsax]

Fantastic job, obviously a lot of work has gone into this project but with a very worth while end result.
As a matter of interest are you having any difficulty with the octave mechanism, I ca'nt mine to balance at all,same mechanism as yours, I've put in a stronger needle spring but this stops the neck arm opening, if I tweak the leaf spring the pad wo'nt shut properly. Night mare, but I'll win through in the end.
Also how did you find the electro plate "thing".

 

[rs2sensen]

RedBottom wrote:
rs, is there any chance of you writing all this up - a sort of technical diary type of thing?

I probably won't have time to do a full technical write-up but I'd be free to answer any of your questions...

Step By Step Of What I Did:
1. Sprayed sax with Febreeze, it smelled.
2. Removed most keys, the ones that came off easily.
3. For keys that didn't come off easy, applied penetrating oil to them and let sit. Then, unscrewed keys.
4. Cleaned and polished sax body. Used Tarni-Shield Silver polish by 3M. Worked pretty well. Be careful your polish is for Silver, and don't scrub too heavily, otherwise you will remove the plating.
5. Areas where plating had been completely worn, I did scrub fairly heavily, as I intended to replate them.
6. I purchased the Caswell Plug 'n plate silver plating device, was like $50ish, and preceded to plate all the worn areas on the body, and a few of the keys. For this to work properly, the sax needs to be clean. The polish works well for that.
7. Most of the keys I didn't do too much to, mostly just polishing. For the really worn stuff, I used a Dremell tool with a buffing thing on the end and just buffed the keys smooth.
8. Did crude swedging to tighten up a couple keys. Note, I say crude. In other words, I banged on the ends with a screwdriver butt until they were tight. It worked well, and I didn't hit it hard enough to damage the posts.
9. For pads and such...I really recommend the saxophone repair kit on Musicmedic.com. It gives instructions and all the tools necessary. I won't do a whole pad write-up, as they already exist online.
10. Checked pads were sealed with a homemade-leaklight.
11. Cleaned case with Armor All

I'm sure I forgot stuff...feel free to ask my individual questions, although email works best. [email protected] I'd be happy to walk you through anything you need, and make suggestions. I've also become fairly knowledgeable on the history of the c-melody, and how to identify different models and the makes of stencil horns. What brand of C-mel do you have?

 

[rs2sensen]

Ken wrote:
Nice project rs2sensen.
Is that silver finish shiney or buff/frosted?
How does it play?

The sax was originally frosted finish, for the most part. I do think that around the engraving may have been shiny. However, the Plug 'n plate system I use doesn't give much control over which finish you get. It comes out shiny, unless your power source is fairly far away. Which, I tried to blend it as well as I could, and the finished effect was sort of cool, an interesting mix between both. It looks really sharp in proper light. Please note...I didn't polish the sax before taking the final pics, so it looks rather smudged up.

She plays great. I've never played another c-melody to compare, but I certainly enjoy playing her. I do intend to get a different mouthpiece, the c-melody mp that came with it is a bit stuffy, and tenor mps worked better. The only other thing I would change would be to put resonators on the pads, which I think would make a big difference. When I get time, I'll make some recordings. I also think I might put either pearl, fake pearl, or polished stones on the keys. But maybe not...

The next sax I do, maybe another c-melody, I think I'll plate the body silver, but do the keys gold and give it a gold bell wash.

 

[rs2sensen]

PaulSax wrote:
Fantastic job, obviously a lot of work has gone into this project but with a very worth while end result.
As a matter of interest are you having any difficulty with the octave mechanism, I ca'nt mine to balance at all,same mechanism as yours, I've put in a stronger needle spring but this stops the neck arm opening, if I tweak the leaf spring the pad wo'nt shut properly. Night mare, but I'll win through in the end.
Also how did you find the electro plate "thing".

No problems at all with my octave key...the only problems I had at first was that I wasn't used to Tenor. Now that I am, it works great. If you are new to tenor, you find it's more...sensitive than alto or soprano, which were my main two. I'd be happy to take more pictures of my octave mechanism if you think they'd help.

I saw the electro plating thing mentioned on a post on a c-melody website, I forget which one. It really worked great, and I was very impressed. Each square inch takes about 45 seconds to plate properly, slightly less if there is some silver left.

They have solutions to plate several metals...I think gold would look interesting on the keys.
http://www.caswellplating.com/kits/plugnplate.htm

 

[rs2sensen]

Thought I'd give an update...I just broke a spring (those are really big springs to break, too!), so rather than futz with it myself, I sent it in to the local music shop. I hadn't been too impressed with their work before, but for the c-mel I didn't care too much. I talked to the tech some and he has the same horn, so at least he can somewhat appreciate it. I told them to up to $75 in work on the horn, so I think that will end up being a basic tune-up, a spring or so, a little work on the neck (to get it tight), and maybe a pad or two.