I am lucky enough to live down the street from Brian from GetASax.com, and every once in a while we find that between the two of us we are in temporary possession of an unusually full grouping of a particular type of saxophone. Last time, it was a Conn night. This time, it was Kings. …
Last night I was reading through my “new” Woodwind Quarterly magazines that I bought just a few days ago in a nearly complete collection from another repairman. These are old, repair-centered periodicals that were published for a brief time in the 1990s until 2001. Very geeky, extremely interesting, and packed with amazing knowledge. I’ve …
A large part of the mechanical rebuild service I provide is invisible to the end user. The result of the job can easily be felt by the player, but the actual mechanical work that is done is literally out of sight, though key fit has repercussions for the adjustment materials that can be …
On Selmer saxophones of certain vintages, the last coat of lacquer was applied after the horn was complete including padwork. They would cork the keys shut and apply the last coat, which resulted in the pad leather outside of the tonehole having a very light coat of lacquer. I’m not certain when exactly this started …
One of the recurring questions I get is a variation on “Should I overhaul my horn?”. This question- almost without exception- comes from players who have never gotten a horn overhauled, and don’t understand why they should put a relatively large amount of money into an overhaul vs. just take it into the shop …
Pictured above are two Couf Superba I tenor saxophones. They are within 2000 serials of each other, are both in very good original condition with fully intact original finishes, and have both been overhauled by me at the request of their owners to have exactly the same setup- same pads, same resonators, exact same key …
This is a closeup of the pearls on the upper stack of a 1943 Strasser-Marigaux-Lemaire (SML) Coleman Hawkins Special. The Coleman Hawkins Special is a fantastically rare instrument in itself, but what makes this one even more interesting is that it was made while France was occupied by Germany in World War II. Saxophone production …
Click on the photo for an even higher resolution image of the beautiful engraving pattern from an extremely rare Conn 12M Transitional baritone saxophone in gold plate with the art deco engraving pattern. Just beautiful.