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 !

 

[Woodpad]

How early is early Pierret ? Do both the sax and clarinet us 3mm?
It wouldn’t be a surprise that a maker would use common parts.

It is a Peruqueou de L'Opera alto saxophone 2036. It has pads with internal rings. This ring is 2.9 mm high, containing grey felt with a cellulose sheath on top and a paper backing. The ring is topped with 0.3 mm thin leather, perfectly flat on the tone hole. I have also seen such pads with a pe sheath and those must be from after WW2 as pe was a military UK secret. The whole pad must have been around 3.5 mm.

 

[PigSquealer]

It is a Peruqueou de L'Opera alto saxophone 2036. It has pads with internal rings. This ring is 2.9 mm high, containing grey felt with a cellulose sheath on top and a paper backing. The ring is topped with 0.3 mm thin leather, perfectly flat on the tone hole. I have also seen such pads with a pe sheath and those must be from after WW2 as pe was a military UK secret. The whole pad must have been around 3.5 mm.

That’s much later technology. The first internal metal rings appear in 1918 on a Holton.

 

[PigSquealer]

As time went on. Other attempts to improve upon a simple leather sock felt combination are noted below.

Compressed felt use evolved to woven felt used. Woven example is the two lower bits. Woven is still used in modern pads.

An interesting duplex approach.
Two layers of compressed felt. Soft behind the leather. Firm to back. Still sewn sock style with center stitch.

The back filled solid with shellac. Was the intention a firmer pad ?

Woven felt, paper ring attached to felt back. Leather glued to paper ring. A second paper ring (in blue) for ? It’s thin paper.

I shaved a sliver of felt off @ 3 o’clock. See this sliver 12 o’clock. This shows the woven strands.

 

[PigSquealer]

The last of the open backs I’ve seen ended like this below.
Woven felt, Loose cardboard ring, thick leather glued to the ring. A loosely struck rivet in middle. If I had to guess the RIP year, 1926.

 

[PigSquealer]

The first internal metal rings appear in 1918 on a Holton.

@Woodpad sorry but I’m hard pressed to find my documentation of this. June of 2025 my iPad suffered a catastrophic meltdown while doing a backup to the Cloud. I lost the previous backup and everything on the device too. 11k annotated pictures and my reference library. It’s been a slow grueling process rebuilding eight years of historical research.

I have one picture below of the 1918 Holton C that had the metal ring pads. SN#1027 second year of production. 1918 numbering was 701-2170.
The auction pictures clearly showed the original pads. Several of which had become partially dislodged from the cups. Wire ring exposed with gap in ring
White goat kid, pressed wool felt, open back, sewn as sock and center stitch. The spring wire ring looked to be around 1.5mm in thickness and round. This was placed (from what I viewed) under the leather. The outer rim of the cups had a slight radius or curved look. I don’t honestly recall seeing any signs of shellac, but certainly stood out that these were most likely snapped into the cup. A possible second reason for the ring with a gap would be keeping them taught. Anti sagging device ??

 

[PigSquealer]

Saturday night and I took some time to tinker on my own stuff. I’ve been eyeing the new mini torch sitting there unused for weeks.
All of one test done and pushed off to the side. Time to step up and see what it will do on live work (for myself 😉).

The regulator settings ended up working at insanely low pressure. These readings taken with the torch lit.

Range with #1 tip was really user friendly. The lower pressure settings made a huge difference. 2 psi matters.
With the above settings. I was able to adjust from a soft white flame to an ultra fine blue cone. In use I favored the soft white flame.
See the victim in view🫣

 

[PigSquealer]

First time use. The victim is my 108 year old Martin C smelly. Only needs reseal on about 1/3 of Lo C. Low chance of falling off. Only two wire guard feet are close by. No big deal if one pops off.

I scraped clean the crevasse the best I could. Then worked a little paste flux in. Gently heating on & off until I got a bit of solder to flow on one end. Heat applied to inside of socket with an additional hit a few times to outside at seam.
I’m happy. Perfect, nope. Happy yep !

The big blurb was my stupid mistake. No anti-flux and a quick swipe with a brush that had flux on it. Oh well 🫠

It rock solid now. Once I have the others completed. I’ll give it a overall spritz of baking soda water. That neutralizes the acid flux. Then it’s off to the wash. That when you get to see if there’s any other's.

 

[PigSquealer]

FWIW it’s already had one good cleaning. Another won’t hurt anything. I like clean before polishing.
This is same location as pictured above.

Next…

The first one cleaned out well. It’s about 40% detached.

 

[PigSquealer]

The upper socket I didn’t apply enough rubber chicken before starting 🤬😩

Both locations cleaned and ready.

The failure was most likely the lack of metal. The joint had next to zero solder on the area.
I masked the parts with anti flux. I still need to tin the socket before anchoring in place. Notice the scribe mark in the socket. That’s my orientation mark.

 

[PigSquealer]

All done with soldering on this one. Perfect, nope, but I’ll take it as a win. Nothing fell off. The sockets are rock solid with no leaks. The mess doesn’t look bad at one foot with stacks off.

Looking at the last techs work makes me feel better about my work.

I tried a different approach by laying the solder next to the joint.

Heat applied to the inside drawing the material inwards. Then full circle to rework the overall socket.

I’m happy with the mechanical results, but the cosmetic results need improvement. The antiflux didn’t really help.
At least nothing fell off. Metal flow is visible all around the joint.

 

[PigSquealer]

The upper socket results were about the same. This was tinned, fluxed, wired into place, heated to flow. It needed more solder. That’s when things got messy.

Not much to reattaching an old socket. Make sure it’s level before wiring in place to solder. Alignment is critical. Make sure it doesn’t move when the tinning settles. Be careful with the heat or you’ll remove regional parts.

 

[PigSquealer]

The hard part is looking at a techs previous work and wondering if I should clean it up some ?

 

[stitch]

wondering if I should clean it up some ?

Nah. It won't make it play any better, and it's part of its history.
Plus it shows your work in a good light!

 

[kamak]

This is awesome work! Nice job! This is far beyond my capabilities.

I was fortunate my tech only had to fix G# leak on my tenor. Its lacquered though so some of it got burned off. But I don't care it plays great!

 

[pgboyd]

I'm guessing the orange stuff is your antiflux? Looks great!

 

[Woodpad]

@Woodpad sorry but I’m hard pressed to find my documentation of this. June of 2025 my iPad suffered a catastrophic meltdown while doing a backup to the Cloud. I lost the previous backup and everything on the device too. 11k annotated pictures and my reference library. It’s been a slow grueling process rebuilding eight years of historical research.

I have one picture below of the 1918 Holton C that had the metal ring pads. SN#1027 second year of production. 1918 numbering was 701-2170.
The auction pictures clearly showed the original pads. Several of which had become partially dislodged from the cups. Wire ring exposed with gap in ring
White goat kid, pressed wool felt, open back, sewn as sock and center stitch. The spring wire ring looked to be around 1.5mm in thickness and round. This was placed (from what I viewed) under the leather. The outer rim of the cups had a slight radius or curved look. I don’t honestly recall seeing any signs of shellac, but certainly stood out that these were most likely snapped into the cup. A possible second reason for the ring with a gap would be keeping them taught. Anti sagging device ??

In all metal ring pads I have seen the ring was L shaped. The short end went over the rim of the cup. This made it possible to check the alignment of cup and tone hole with a metal plate of the correct thickness. With this method the thickness of the pad is less important, it just has to fit in the cup.

 

[PigSquealer]

Nah. It won't make it play any better, and it's part of its history.
Plus it shows your work in a good light!

Thanks for the compliment 😊.

Honestly, I’m debating on leaving the overall patina look as received, undisturbed. This hasn’t been cleaned in eighty years or more. Most of the pads were OE. It wouldn’t play beyond a squeak. I wasn’t about to ask the stiff old keys to dance. Save for after some TLC and another day.

TLC is currently in the works.

My feelings are…” it can only be orginal once!”.
On one shoulder the is suggesting to make it look new again….. People dream about what they looked like back in the day as purchased new. Never mind the current playing condition. Essentially make this a display item in a museum. That’s like prison behind a glass wall. Look, but you will never hear my voice again.


Others look at the patina and play condition as 😇. They have an understanding that this is old, used and has been enjoyed. If refurbished a home will be found for you. I want you to hear my past, those whom I spoke too and listened. They didn’t judge, they only listened.
A gift of one’s time.

 

[pgboyd]

Well, I guess there is a fine line between patina and grime. The stencil alto I just started was one of the filthiest things I have seen. Even after ultrasonic cleaning it needed quite a bit of cleaning. A lot of the nickel plating from keys and hinge tubes is just a memory. It’s hard to wax and protect the surface of something like that.

 

[Woodpad]

Well, I guess there is a fine line between patina and grime.

The line between aging and abuse.

 

[PigSquealer]

Old, patina, grime, abuse with new black Roo pads. A few tan for some reason.
Still has 90% 1918 cork work.
Body not washed.
Lower stack feet have multiple cork layers attached with super glue.
Some parts have no oil.
A few needle springs fell on floor somewhere…grrrrrr.