Under all that crud was a thing of beauty

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

A month or so ago I bought an old 1924 Buescher C-Melody sax and decided I’d restore it myself. Keep in mind I’ve never attempted anything like this. In fact, until today I’ve never even played a sax (I do play some clarient though).

I don’t have the before pictures online yet but just think of this sax covered in 80 years of dirt and crap. Parts of the horn were black from years of crud. Some keys would hardly move. Tarnish, goo, and odd coloured growth were under each key.The engraving on the front was mostly dull and it was only after I started cleaning did I find out it was supposed to be high polished. I think it cleaned up nicely.





The horn is made of brass and the outside is plated in silver. I thought inside the bell was brass but the music tech I spoke with today said it was common to use gold. I still think it’s brass but he’s the horn expert. There are no real signs of wear on the horn and even the underside of the thumbhook is still silver. The area that gets bashed up by belt buckles (below and left of the thumbhook) is nice and smooth. I’m pretty sure this thing sat in its case for most of its 80 year life.

Today, the basic restortion is complete. I replaced all the pads, felt, key corks and a few dead springs myself. I think I put 40+ hours into it. Hours of hand buffing and hacking away at crud with a toothbrush and silver paste. A few places were so bad I ended up needing a brass wire wheel on the dremmel to chip it off.

I couldn’t get the neck cork right so I had to hire a guy do that for me. Not for the lack of trying mind you. I gave it my best a couple times and each time it was laughable bad.

I played it for the first time today. The upper section is fine but I can hardly get notes from the lower end. At closer look, most of the lower pads aren’t even close to fitting right. My plan was to just replace everything and see what happens THEN go over it more closely and adjust the bad bits. This wasn’t much of a shock to me to find out a large section is going to need adjusting. I lucked out on the top half though. Almost everything is nice and snug.

Tomorrow I have the tedious job of tweaking all the lower cups and lifting pads to fit. Perhaps by tomorrow night it will be playable.

I was so pleased with myself on the results of the C-Melody I decided to buy myself a gift. So today I bought this.

A 1991 Conn Alto in almost perfect shape.

I’m such a dork.

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Here’s a close up of what it looked like before.

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I’ve seen all the bits and pieces, rods and linkages on them, I don’t like to think I’d ever have to do a job like that, I always end up with bits left over when I strip stuff down, everything always works too, so the bits must have been just extras.

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Connnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn!!!

Sorry, couldn’t resist.

Nice job on the sax.

5

Have you dropped a small light into the horn and checked for leaks?
Also, did you get a mouthpiece with the sax? 80 years of gunge from other people’s mouths! :eek: Sterelize it with some Whiskey. Drink the rest.
Put on a Stan Getz CD.

6

The light is what I did today. That’s the “tedious job” I was talking about. When I first posted this I had only tried to play it. I could work the top section but the lower just squeeked. My thought, the upper fits snug the lower sucks.

This afternoon I took a flashlight and lowered it down with a string. Eeek gads. I spent all my the time today adjusting the upper half. It is now leak free. I’m about to work on the lower half now.

The mouthpiece, from what everyone can tell, is the C-melody mouth peice sold with the sax. This would make it 80 some years old. It sat in mouthwash for hours, scrubbed and then back in for another soak.

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Out of interest, since this instrument is so old, what does it tune middle A to, as it might predate the international conferance that set it to A440 in 1939?

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This is a Buescher “True Tone” saxaphone which is 440.