Installing the new RooPads, Palm and Pinky Keys

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

Cork

For each cork replacement, I first figured out what thickness I needed for each spot. When taking this into consideration, I used a piece slightly thicker than what was originally on there with the plan to sand it down to the ideal height.

Before cutting the amounts and measurements of cork I needed, I first applied a thin layer of contact cement. I also applied cement to all the surfaces on the horn where I am going to replace cork. It takes about 10 minutes for the cement to dry to an ideal adhesion before connecting the two cemented surfaces. I noticed that if you connect the cork to the metal key surface before the cement has enough time to adequately dry, the adhesion is a little mushy and can be easily torn off.

Also, be sure that the metal surface on each key is clean and free of dirt by first cleaning it with an alcohol napkin.

After all the corks were in place, I went back and cut any edges hanging over with a razor. Now it's time to replace the pads.

The first thing I did was to completely disassemble the horn. Be careful if you try to do this for the first time. I've done it once or twice before, and the first time took me 3 times as long to reassemble it. The purpose was to check and see if all the rods are straight, all the posts are aligned, and all the keys turn smoothly and without friction around the rod. So far, so good. Luckily there were no serious alignment issues that would require me to have to bend any part of the horn.


My next step is to level all the tone holes with tone hole files. For this, I had to borrow tone hole files from a repair tech friend as there's only so much money I want to spend on my first overhaul attempt. I referred to Curt Altarac's article on the MusicMedic.com site on how exactly to level a tone hole:

http://www.musicmedic.com/info/articles/num_6.html

Basically you just sand down each one til there is no visible leak with the leak light, then you roll up a ball of aluminum foil and polish away the burs left from the leveler.



You can see by the pictures of the pads that this horn was well past due for a repadding.



Well, that's all for now. Next post will be about replacing all the corks, swedging, and hopefully a new pad or 2.

Yours,
Bridgesax

Tools and Materials

Pictured here are the tools I will be using for the overhaul. First off, I have the complete MusicMedic.com saxophone repair kit and a set of RooPads with Maestro Star Airtight Gold Plated Resonators. Awesome! I hope my student appreciates this. I'll install these pads with clear shellac and check it as I go with the leak light.













To the right are all the tools I have collected over the years. The essentials will be the Butane torch, the pad slicks and my new MusicMedic swedging pliers.

The next picture is all the materials I've collected. Normally I use ultrasuede layered on cork on my own horn, but I will just go with tech cork on the students horn as it is less time consuming. Also in the picture are felts, pad leather, teflon (for sliding surfaces), wooden key wedges, and MusicMedic contact cement.

MusicMedic experiment, take 1

Greetings to all the saxophoners out there. My name is Wesley. I am a professional saxophonist and an amateur saxophone repairman. In fact, you could probably call me a beginner. When I was in college, a colleague showed me some basics of repair and upkeep, namely cork replacement, fixing a weak spring, etc. To save money, I've done a lot of my own work on my horn as well as my students' horns.

Well, I've decided to take it to the next level and actually attempt an overhaul. Iv'e heard a lot about the repair kit put out by MusicMedic.com and decided to see if it can really work for a novice repairman making a first attempt at an overhaul. So, I'm creating this blog in order to document my experience with the MusicMedic kit (using it's instructions and all) and let my readers out there know if it actually works.

I have a beginning 12-year-old student who is currently renting a no-name brand throw-away horn. If everything works out with the overhaul, this will be his new horn. I'm working with an old Selmer Signet I bought off of Craigslist for cheap. The horn plays okay but has many leaks and is in desperate need of attention. My goal is to replace all the corks and pads, get rid of as much friction and play within the keys as I can, and set up the action and key heights for optimum feel, sound, and intonation.

More images to come in the next post.

Yours,
Bridgesax