SHWoodwind Updates

Stephen Howard said:
A new entry for the Benchlife Blog! The Chu Berry TJ RAW.

Following on from the hideously botched TJ RAW, I've detailed the process of fixing the horn and making a new tenon sleeve for the Chu Berry crook.
Came out quite nice, though I'm on the fence as to whether it's a worthwhile mod...

A rolling blog of everyday life on and around the workbench

An informal peek at what goes on in the SHWoodwind workshop
www.shwoodwind.co.uk

View attachment 22291
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Nice work! Cutting a thin wall tube takes a little patience and a good set up like this. I’m curious how you mounted the socket and cut the old sleeve out to size in the new one. Then I assume you silver soldered on the new socket. Then proceeded to (soft ?) solder the new part on to the crook. Or did you silver solder it all at one time ?
 
PigSquealer said:
Nice work! Cutting a thin wall tube takes a little patience and a good set up like this. I’m curious how you mounted the socket and cut the old sleeve out to size in the new one. Then I assume you silver soldered on the new socket. Then proceeded to (soft ?) solder the new part on to the crook. Or did you silver solder it all at one time ?
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I used the tapered brass mandrel to mount the sleeve (gave it a tap to get it nice and tight) then centred it in the chuck. I then used a small and very sharp carbide boring bar to gently cut the sleeve out of the socket.
The socket was then silver-soldered to the new sleeve and the whole assembly soft soldered to the crook.
 
I kind of guessed you went that route. That’s one of those jobs where you get one shot to make it right. Easy on the cuts. You blink wrong the part will be on the floor mashed.
I think I would try this turning in reverse. Tool towards me and upside down. Anything hangs it will lift the tool.
 
PigSquealer said:
I kind of guessed you went that route. That’s one of those jobs where you get one shot to make it right. Easy on the cuts. You blink wrong the part will be on the floor mashed.
I think I would try this turning in reverse. Tool towards me and upside down. Anything hangs it will lift the tool.
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Yep, it's a one-time operation.
I avoided any potential hangs by using the carbide boring bar. It's extremely sharp. If you run the lathe as fast as you can (without inducing chatter) and use a light, slow feed you can practically feel the progress of the tool via the topslide handwheel. Patience helps. Bear in mind it's a tapered bore, so there's a reasonable bit of thickness up at the chuck end of the job.
I'm always slightly wary of using reverse cutting (I sometimes use it for threadcutting) because on my lathe it's so easy to press the wrong button and run the lathe forward. Always makes a mess. I have little piece of U-section steel that I place over the forward start switch to prevent such accidents...but the first accident tends to be forgetting to put the thing in place!
 
The fun stuff always comes with a certain amount of risk. It’s the worst when ya do it to yourself. Baaaaad switch.

When you cut the sleeve out of the socket did you add a small shoulder? Or part shoulder on the socket and part on the new sleeve. I’m having a hard time envisioning much meat left on the socket to mandrel to hold the part.
 
PigSquealer said:
The fun stuff always comes with a certain amount of risk. It’s the worst when ya do it to yourself. Baaaaad switch.

When you cut the sleeve out of the socket did you add a small shoulder? Or part shoulder on the socket and part on the new sleeve. I’m having a hard time envisioning much meat left on the socket to mandrel to hold the part.
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Yep, there was a small shoulder. It needed one, otherwise it would have been tricking squaring up the new sleeve. Plenty of meat in the socket ring. But - it had to be done in one go right at the end of the turning job...because the moment you cut through the original sleeve, the socket will fall off.
 
A big treat (ahem) for Borgani fans - two new reviews.

First up is the Joe Lovano tenor, which I've added to the rolling Vintage tenor review:

Borgani OBT Vintage tenor, Joe Lovano and Vintage alto saxophone review

A workbench review of the Borgani OBT Vintage tenor and alto saxes
www.shwoodwind.co.uk

shwwimg_borgani_lovano_tenor_lacquer smaller.jpg


And then there's the Borgani OBS soprano. A word of warning...you might want to put the kettle on...

Borgani OBS soprano saxophone review

A workbench review of the Borgani OBS soprano sax
www.shwoodwind.co.uk

shwwimg_borgani_obs_soprano_bell smaller.jpg
 
The last few months I have been in the process of trying to find a tenor that would give me a sound that I liked more than my Yamaha.
From what I had read and heard, I was looking towards, Conn, Keilwerth, perhaps a TJ Signature Custom.... But I had never played any of these myself, so it was a journey. In the beginning I had also included Borgani. I had played a Borgani (very briefly) in the shop of my tech. It played quite nice, but I hadn't really paid much attention to the tone at that time. I was more focused on the ergonomics, the position of the key's under my fingers.

Your reviews led me to striking Borgani of my list. If I am going to get another tenor, it should last me at least 20 years without major problems (like my YTS32 has done)
About 3.5 weeks ago I got to try out a Conn 10m and compare it to some Keilwerths (one new and one second hand), and some other second hand saxes. The Conn kept asserting itself as the kind of sound that captivated me, so I bought that one. I am now in the process of adapting to the particularities of that Conn.
I love the sound, but I have found that it is not so forgiving as my Yamaha, I'll need to improve my playing further with this sax....

So thank you for sharing your insights!
 
Wonko said:
Your reviews led me to striking Borgani of my list. If I am going to get another tenor, it should last me at least 20 years without major problems (like my YTS32 has done)
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I can't say that I blame you.
The real tragedy is that underneath all that shonkiness they're very fine horns. They may not be to everyone's taste, but while I feel it's a good thing that there are manufacturers out there who are producing rather more individual horns - it can never be an excuse for sub-par build quality. Especially at the price being asked.
I think that what annoys me the most, though, is that it would cost so little to address the issues during manufacture - and while the result might be a price hike of, say, a hundred or so pounds, it would very greatly add to the desirability of these horns.
 
Stephen Howard said:
I can't say that I blame you.
The real tragedy is that underneath all that shonkiness they're very fine horns. They may not be to everyone's taste, but while I feel it's a good thing that there are manufacturers out there who are producing rather more individual horns - it can never be an excuse for sub-par build quality. Especially at the price being asked.
I think that what annoys me the most, though, is that it would cost so little to address the issues during manufacture - and while the result might be a price hike of, say, a hundred or so pounds, it would very greatly add to the desirability of these horns.
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Very true!
my former teacher played a Joe Lovano tenor, he seemed very pleased with it.
One might say that they are playing the general game of cutting costs to keep the prices low (or the profits high?). But I guess they are not competing against the cheap saxes,
They have a public all of their own.
Their competition would be the likes of Keilwerth and the vintage American saxes I think. So why would they cut corners and produce cheapo saxes?
 
Wonko said:
Very true!
my former teacher played a Joe Lovano tenor, he seemed very pleased with it.
One might say that they are playing the general game of cutting costs to keep the prices low (or the profits high?). But I guess they are not competing against the cheap saxes,
They have a public all of their own.
Their competition would be the likes of Keilwerth and the vintage American saxes I think. So why would they cut corners and produce cheapo saxes?
Click to expand...
The Lovano was interesting. Disregarding the build issues I felt it occupied a very niche position in terms of its tonal presentation. Not my cup of tea, but I can see how many players would find its 'more vintage' approach very appealing.

I really have no idea why they don't step up their game with regard to build quality. It's got to be commercial suicide to rely on a hard core of fans to keep geeing the market up - especially when someone pulls back the shroud and says "****...look at this!" But more than that, I confess to being completely baffled as to why they make horns that can obviously appeal to a good number of players, and then effectively trash them with a cheapo action.

If it's that they're trying to compete on price then I'd have to say that it's totally the wrong approach - at least the way they seem to be doing it. It's surely far better to make something that's oozing with integrity and charge accordingly for it - because folks out there will pay for things like that. A bog-standard SA80II tenor's nigh on seven grand, and in terms of playability a Borgani in fine fettle would have no trouble holding its own ground.
I just can't make any sense of it all, and it honestly pains me to say that the evidence seems to point to them simply not giving a damn.
 
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