One of the problems I ran into while putting in the new pads was how much shellac to use. After replacing the left hand palm key pads (D, Eb, F), I noticed the old pads were significantly thinner due to compression over the years. This required just the right amount of shellac to get the same key height as before.Another problem I ran into was keeping the use of shellac neat and tidy so as not to damage the pad with overflow during shellac application. Ideally, I would have liked to have MusicMedic's Z-Gun, but I just have a butane torch. Rather than trying to carefully drip hot shellac into each cup, I made dime-sized drops into a non-stick frying pan. I let those dry, pried them out of the pan, placed them into the pad cups, then reheated the shellac from the back of the cups with the pads in place.
Using my pad slick, I then pressed the pad firmly into the cup to make sure there were no air pockets and scraped the excess shellac while still hot from around the edges of the pads. I found it's important to leave enough shellac to work with behind the pad for positioning over the tonehole.
Working slowly in a dark room (my bathroom) with a leak-light, I went from the top of the horn (high F) and made sure each palm key was leak free. When finding a small leak on one side of the pad, I heated up the pad cup and pressed the pad slick on the opposite side of the leak between the pad and the tonehole. In order to get out the smaller leaks, I gently pulled the pad down with a pad prick.
I continued this process for all the simple keys on the horn: left and right hand palm keys, fork F#, low Eb and C, low B and Bb. Next I'll talk about the more complex process of installing the top and bottom stack pads as they rely on key timing (2 or more pads closing at the same time).
Yours,
Bridgesax
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