Project Pruple 21 - Your opinions?

DavidUK

Well-Known Member
Café Supporter
Well, here's the YAS-21 I bought recently for £50 shipped. I had an idea to strip it and re-finish as jbtsax did here: http://cafesaxophone.com/community/...doesnt-need-to-look-like-a-student-sax.10720/
But, bearing in mind he said he wouldn't do another I'm having 2nd thoughts.... plus, I have another more "needy" project in the offing!
It needs some tech work on the pads below middle D, and maybe some very minor dent work. Maybe £50 all in.
Nickel work to keys is fairly good and could be left at just a polish.
But what shall I do with the brass body and neck? There is a smidgen of the Pruple Logo remaining which may be worth a little for provenance upon re-sale, and the Pruple neck logo is intact. If I refinish the body I'd lose the bell logo. So... I either simply clean it all up, or maybe polish the scuffed bow and bell guard areas back to shiny for re-sale.
Or... shall I just stick it on ebay as it is and see what happens?

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From what I've read, Yamaha epoxy lacquer is difficult to remove compared to the nitrocellulose lacquer found on older saxes and I'm not sure you'd add much to the value if you did.
I'd just get the pad and dent work done and enjoy playing it, but you're not so keen on rough looking lacquer than me..
 
if it was mine, I`d just fix it up and play it, the Pruple logo only means anything in 61s and 62s ....... David, I`ve PM'd You
 
The guy firstly put the price up £400 then when I queried this he said it wasn't for sale anymore. Guess he's not sure about selling it. Neither would I be if I were him!!
 
Looks like Project Pruple will end up as a Rat Sax for yours Truly 😀 . I have a Tenor one (The Corton SX89.5) so an Alto to join it is a good move, the Jupe was way too nice to use as a Rat just like the BW was Tenorwise (so got sold) , The Pruple is perfect especially as my 62 necks will likely fit Giving the 21 a full range of sounds .

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Yeah will do . I`m expecting it to sound like a 61 but a marginally less complex sound and with less refined action which was the way the 61/21 Tenors compared. the sound was far closer than I expected and I think some of that difference was neck related.

I`m still not sure if I can warrant owning a brand new 62 MkIII Alto given the lack of gigs I can do with an Eb horn so it may get sold (and get a used Yani 901 Curved sop with the cash) and the Purple Rat may end up as my only alto ..
 
Yeah will do . I`m expecting it to sound like a 61 but a marginally less complex sound and with less refined action which was the way the 61/21 Tenors compared. the sound was far closer than I expected and I think some of that difference was neck related.

I`m still not sure if I can warrant owning a brand new 62 MkIII Alto given the lack of gigs I can do with an Eb horn so it may get sold (and get a used Yani 901 Curved sop with the cash) and the Purple Rat may end up as my only alto ..

There's a used 901 at sax.co at the moment and one at Howarths last time I looked. Just Flutes in Croydon have a very overpriced one - I got a new 991 for a few hundred less than that.
 
Yeah, thanks I saw the howards one . we`ll see how the 21 goes and if anyone is interested in a 3 month old 62 Mk3 Alto which has been tuned by Stephen Howard
 
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All YAS21s look like that when they've been played a lot, which is really the purpose of them. Get it playable and then either play it or sell it as is. Cosmetic scruffiness isn't too detrimental to the value of these saxes as long as they play. And they play great - I've had several of them over the years and I've enjoyed playing every one.
 
All YAS21s look like that when they've been played a lot, which is really the purpose of them. Get it playable and then either play it or sell it as is. Cosmetic scruffiness isn't too detrimental to the value of these saxes as long as they play. And they play great - I've had several of them over the years and I've enjoyed playing every one.

plus one for this. have a 30 yr old yts62 that looks like a dog - in fact i reckon very few would ever buy it given how it looks - But - it plays like a dream and as long as it keeps going, so will i.
 
Errrrrr as mentioned above, David's sold it ....... to me .. and getting it playable and playing it is exactly what I`m going to do , I don`t care what it looks like, so long as Paul Carrington can get it kicked into shape playability wise I`ll be happy

The Purple Rat Avatar is a tribute to this Horn :rolleyes:
 
I`ve ordered some Humbrol No 68 Purple paint and already have red so the next stage is to do a ratio mix of the two to make Yamaha Pruple . then to make a Yamaha stencil from sticky back plastic which can be stuck to the bell of the horn and the pruple paint be applied . Humbrol enamel is tough as boots .. I guess it`d be easier to get a laser signmaker to do the yamaha stencils , especially if anything complicated like the logo or smaller lettering for the model name are needed , to be honest, just Yamaha would be good enough for now.....

It`d be intertesting to see how well this works, especially to someone like Ian Saxman who has a couple of totally de-laq`d Pruple Yams with no lettering on
 

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