Week 19- The Saxophone

We have finally begun our work on the saxophone!

As we start our initial process of learning the ins and outs of the saxophone, we are focusing on the amount of regulations on the instrument.  Eleven regulation points on pro horns! My Music & Arts saxophone only has ten regulations, but the amount of thought that has gone into the mechanics of this instrument are incredible!  It is so cool to begin to understand how the upper and lower stacks work together and all rely on the venting of the F key.  Who would have thought that the venting for the entire instrument is reliant on one key cup!

While our class has yet to dig into repair, we were able to get the feel of disassembly and reassembly.  The saxophone is very complex, but as I get used to the mechanisms, I'm sure it will get more and more exciting!

We were also prompted to make a few tools this week during class.  The first was a trombone inner slide tube end plug.  It was very important to turn the steps of the plug to specific diameters.  Using precise cut progressions, I was able to turn the steps to 0.524" and 0.499".  How cool is that?!  It was very refreshing to get back on the lathe to complete a new tool, and I'm excited to use it once I get back into the brass lab.

Later in the week, the class focussed on padding.  The saxophone pads require much more glue!  We are still use the Shur-Duz-Stik Hot melt glue, however some of my pads from the factory were glued in using shellac.  In Minnesota, the super cold and low humidity climate doesn't work well with shellac.  As a result, my student horn had many pads that were falling out of the instrument!  Lucas gave us a tutorial on seating pads.  I'm finding this to be difficult initially.  A lot of that has to do with unlevel tone hole coming from the factory.  While this is a fact of life for most mass produced instruments, it sure makes seating pads a task and a half!  We will eventually level our tone holes on the project horns which will surely help in the battle of fully sealing pads.

Finally, we made a pearl protector for our saxophones.  Because the pearls on the touchpieces can melt under high temperatures, technicians must take caution in heating pad cups.  The flame of a torch can easily melt plastic pearls or burn real pearls.  To get around this we silver soldered a brass rod to a flute keycup.  This rounded out key cup will act as a barrier and heat sink to place around pearls while I am heating and flexing keys!