Saxophones Pork Tales: Saxophone Repair DIY Adventures.

Life around the barn.

Tales from a pig that likes to stick his nose into everything.

Paint that S. How difficult could it be ?

1) Search the net.
2) Find the color.
3) Order color.
4) Study task on University of YouTube, aka; For destruction by DYI presented by pro tech.

Do the cleaning & prep.

Paint and cleanup / detail the edges with hard cotton swabs. Sounds easy……

Yeah tha guy Matt makes it look easy.
Anyone remember your first experience cooking bacon crispy while still in the frying pan !

 

[PigSquealer]

From the imprint you can see that the pad was too thick, heavy imprint on the axis side and much less on the opposite side.

Look at the indentation in leather for orientation to repair location. The pad is 10,80 x 2,86mm, 4.6mm hole.

 

[PigSquealer]

Car club guys sent me a thank you card and treat today 🤗

 

[PigSquealer]

Back to the little curvy sop.
I wasn’t up to talking it apart to do a one minute patch job. The area is reasonably accessible assembled.

With good lighting from this magnifying setup. I cleaned the area with alcohol. Then gently scraped the crevice and face of area.

I afforded the local pads a bit of protection. Preheated the spot some holding my iron flat upside the chimney. Yes that’s 600°F.

Work fast ! Adjust heat to 420°f. With a needle I gave the void a spot of flux. Clean iron tip with flux & tin tip with a smidgen of solder. Place the iron tip back on repair. When the base metal gets hot enough the metal will flow.

 

[PigSquealer]

Task completed. Just a small leak to work out. Just a heat cup / pad and float / reset impression.

And …… that’s when the pad fell out. That white ooze on the pads edge isn’t HMG or shellac. It’s white glue !
There’s nothing in the cup holding the pad in. Time to make a new pad.

 

[Woodpad]

Look at the indentation in leather for orientation to repair location. The pad is 10,80 x 2,86mm, 4.6mm hole.


View attachment 33211

You are right, the heavy indenture is not on the axis side. In that case the height of the pad is good, but the resting position of the key cup is not parallel to the tone hole.

 

[PigSquealer]

New pad made. The block I machined to 10,5 x 3.0mm.

A bit thick coming out of the block. I let it sit overnight weighted down.

0,5mm to big. Or the hole too small 🤷‍♂️.

 

[PigSquealer]

New pad will probably work, but today I don’t care to force fit anything. I cleaned up the old one, added some hot glue and put it back.

Not perfect but not leaking. The little curvy now plays two octaves only when requested.

Notes taken, nothing more to fix. Waiting for another just like it to come in. I may be doing two COA’s or repads at once. They’ll both fit on the bench.

 

[PigSquealer]

Curvy SOP update. It plays well enough to do a full repad. The pads likely date to 2005/2007. They’re a bit stiff. Most could seal better. Playing a SOP with Gorilla grip is just abusing the poor thing. Refloating 24 old pads that lack adequate glue is not my idea of fun. There’s a sister to this one coming in next week. Two will fit on my bench 🤪

 

[PigSquealer]

Have some time to work on some of my stuff. I started on these two projects last year. Both C tenors.
The first is an early Martin (17xxx) 1915-1919. The SN# charts state 1919 at 17000 as starting. I’ve seen a handful of SN’s @ 15000.
This has non beveled sockets.

The York is also an early example. 66xxx / 1922-23.

 

[PigSquealer]

Reviewing where I left off a year ago. I didn’t write down any notes 😒

Found a few old pictures showing needed repairs.

Looks like I’ve already patched up a few spots on York.

 

[PigSquealer]

No chance of mixing the bits up. Martin parts are color coded black.

Maybe people had fat pinky fingers a hundred years ago ? As pinky’s evolved becoming smaller the G# touch increased in size🤔

 

[PigSquealer]

Pad technology has changed a bit over time. No floating of pads here. Just some shellac to hold the pad in place.

Modern pad thickness is around.160/4mm to .200/5mm depending on maker. These old pads are .240/6.1mm. One has additional shims making it .255/6,5mm thick. That’s like building in 1/16”~ 1mm squeeze range to make them seal.

 

[Tuppertn]

No chance of mixing the bits up. Martin parts are color coded black.

You're not gonna polish that are you? The black patina looks so cool.

Ready for a night out in basic black with pearls...

 

[PigSquealer]

Oddly I’ve never seen the outside edge of a pad shimmed to fit a cup.

 

[PigSquealer]

The York & Martin bodies look very similar until you train your eyes on small details.

 

[PigSquealer]

For example the York has a full upper and lower stack rib plate build. The plate is stamped out. The plate is shaped then the sockets are drawn. Lastly while mounted in a jig the pillars/ posts are soldered on. This assembly is then aligned to holes on the body and final soldered in position.

Other sockets are flanged and individually soldered into place. Notice the bell key above and Lo C & Lo C# below

Honestly I don’t know the history or origins of rib building, but typically they look like this.

 

[PigSquealer]

The Martin has a few leaky sockets. No surprise and no big fun to do a full resolder.

 

[PigSquealer]

You're not gonna polish that are you? The black patina looks so cool.

Ready for a night out in basic black with pearls...

I’m thinking of cleaning & polishing the Martin body and leaving the keywork alone. The black patina is very thick and mostly even / consistent over all the parts. I don’t find many that have this. There’s always one or a few bits that get polished at some point. 106+ years with none ! Thinking I may matt lacquer over to conserve the look.

 

[PigSquealer]

The York parts are already looking decent after soapy water wash.

 

[PigSquealer]

Cleaning and polishing consumes tons of time. Be patient !