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Mikey B
Member
- 168
I recently acquired a pretty beat up and well used Yamaha YTS 61 that I took pity on. Most of the lacquer was scratched and worn and the keys and mechanisms were very dirty with caked on gunge, also very clanky in use. As regards to the pads some were sticking and others leaking, the main body, bow and bell showed multiple dings. Inside the body of the instruments was just disgusting, don't think it had ever seen a pull through in its life, most of the crud on the inside had accumulated on the left where the horn had been laid down in its case.
I completely took the sax apart including the bell and let it soak in the bath of water for several hours to loosen up the muck which came away after a damn good scrub with a bottle brush. I then arranged with Griff (who subscribes to this forum )to deliver the body and bell to him so he could remove the dents for me, this amazingly he done for me while I waited, all on a bank holiday Monday as well! We discussed Saxophones, and other things and on completion of the dent removal he furnished me with felts, corks and and a few pads that I Knew I needed to put the Yamaha back together.
After getting back home with a much straighter sax I stripped off all the lacquer from everything and gave it all a further good scrubbing.I replaced all the corks and felts replaced around 11 pads and put it back together. It took a little while to adjust the seating of the stack keys and I had a couple of leaks from new pads which required reheating to re seat them
By far the most time consuming and frustrating part was getting the octave mechanism to work properly, but having sorted that the sax is now an excellent player from top to bottom and having been delacquered is now very slowly taking on a vintage appearance.
I would like to thank Griff for his help at short notice, and I can thoroughly recommend him to you all. His prices are very reasonable as well.
:welldone
Regards, Mike.
I completely took the sax apart including the bell and let it soak in the bath of water for several hours to loosen up the muck which came away after a damn good scrub with a bottle brush. I then arranged with Griff (who subscribes to this forum )to deliver the body and bell to him so he could remove the dents for me, this amazingly he done for me while I waited, all on a bank holiday Monday as well! We discussed Saxophones, and other things and on completion of the dent removal he furnished me with felts, corks and and a few pads that I Knew I needed to put the Yamaha back together.
After getting back home with a much straighter sax I stripped off all the lacquer from everything and gave it all a further good scrubbing.I replaced all the corks and felts replaced around 11 pads and put it back together. It took a little while to adjust the seating of the stack keys and I had a couple of leaks from new pads which required reheating to re seat them
By far the most time consuming and frustrating part was getting the octave mechanism to work properly, but having sorted that the sax is now an excellent player from top to bottom and having been delacquered is now very slowly taking on a vintage appearance.
I would like to thank Griff for his help at short notice, and I can thoroughly recommend him to you all. His prices are very reasonable as well.
:welldone
Regards, Mike.
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