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I have (with the major help of Claude Code) completely rewritten this site for the static site generator Hugo, and moved hosting. These two changes are major, but completely under the hood. What you should notice is that the site is now much, much faster and hopefully shows up better in searches for sax info. I have added a “new gallery” as well, with images from the past several years.

New gallery started in January 2026 alongside a major website rebuild. Click any image to enlarge.

1968 Conn Product Manual, scanned in high resolution. https://www.greenleafcollection.org/research-text/1968-conn-product-manual

1951 King Super 20 “Silver Sonic” alto saxophone with full pearls, just overhauled by me. Original finish including lacquer over gold inlay engraving on solid silver bell, lacquer over solid silver neck. I did this one with my own handmade pads and flat metal resonators.

Just finished up the overhaul on this excellent playing King Super 20 alto from 1953. This one has been refinished at some point in the past, which makes a lot of the work challenging- especially on a Super 20 since the key barrels are solid nickel! Swedging them is a good bit of exercise.

Super 20 bell keys are just so weird. One of these days, I will reinstall the criss cross applesauce low C# and low B on some of the altos without having to think quite so hard. But not yet.

Pad set cutouts for a Super 20 alto. Felt, card, leather. Neck for scale

Almost done this old workhorse Martin tenor. I get to work on a lot of extremely good condition horns. But I also get to work on daily drivers, and horns that have seen a lot of use. They are both rewarding in different ways, but there’s something special about these horns with a few miles on them- sometimes, it’s like you can feel the gratitude. A lot of times when you’re working on stuff like this you’ve got something you’re about to do and it can go a lot of different ways on the spectrum between great to not great. The more variables, the more complex the issue, the less likely that great-on-the-first-try result is. But sometimes these horns give that to you every time. You look at something and think oh, this is going to be a journey. And you settle down to start that process and… you get it right on the first try! And you kind of look at the horn and it’s like yeah man, we’re working together on this one. I wanna play.

I have an old HN White alto (56k serial) in silver hanging on a tree outside my Airstream workshop. I have noticed an uptick in the past few years of people looking to refurb (usually at home as a DIY project) these older HN White horns and I am only sometimes successful at resisting sending people this photo when they ask about them.

Mark VI tenor I just overhauled wearing the pads I make. I am really loving these. I’ve made improving my padwork a major focus over the last 5 or so years and I think I am finally arriving at a place I like. Perhaps time to pick up the overhaul video series where I left off!

Original pads, original condition American-assembled 1955 Mark VI tenor saxophone with high F# and original Tonex resonators. Look at that padwork. The horn still plays well!

Finished up the Nixie clock build! I have been wanting to make one of these since 2010 or so. I Made the enclosure on the laser cutter that I use to make pads.

Booklet from a 1957 Martin “The Martin” tenor saxophone.

What a little more than half a day of neck fitting a 10M can look like. The left most picture is after everything was cleaned and the initial expansion was done and the first lapping step was done and then the lapping compound cleaned away. You can see the (typical) low spots below and around the neck screw slot in the dull metal. This is typically caused by overtightening of the neck screw, a problem that typically starts with a loose neck, possibly from a slight pulldown or just time or a bad fit from the factory. The top of the receiver gets tightened too much and ovals out and creates a bulge beneath the slot, and it gets worse over time. In the case of the 10M, I think sometimes this is also caused by the metal end plug tap tap tapping away at the receiver as the horn jostles in its case, and that receiver on the 10M is underbuilt already.

This 1941 Conn 10M appears to be in decent shape! Just overhauled by me with my self-made pads.

One of the things I’ve found that I really enjoy about my self-made saxophone pads is that they’re really, really flat. I think that that’s basically what happens when you have an even tension on the skin all around, and it isn’t too tight. Getting an even tension on the skin is part of the handwork of making the pad, and while it is not difficult to do, it helps to be attentive and have an understanding of seating pads when you are making pads to do them well.

my intonation journey with the StroboConn is just starting but I can tell it will be of this type

some neat old photos at the Indiana Memory site of the Indiana Library. You can search C.G. Conn, Buescher. Martin unfortunately is too generic a name. https://digital.library.in.gov/Search/Results?lookfor=c.g.+conn

SML alto with the “permagold” finish. Not actual gold but instead zinc chromate, and you don’t often see them looking this good!

The StroboConn is a super high precision mechanical tuning device that was invented in the 1930s: https://patents.google.com/patent/US2286030A/en The 12 wheels allow you to see very note at once, so you can see the relative strength and intonation of your harmonics at the same time as your fundamental note. Production continued through World War 2, as it has industrial uses beyond tuning saxophones. On that patent, you will see Allen Loomis as an assignee. He was heavily involved in the Conn Experimental Laboratory, and if you click his name you can see he has tons of really interesting saxophone patents.