Dirty Horns

Got your attention!
Possibly not as interesting as it sounds, that depends very much on your point of view. I wanted this blog to just give you an idea of what I do and what I work on. The vast majority of the instruments I get in for repair are, predictably, student instruments which have been used and abused. But once in a while a few rarities and oddities come my way.
This week, has been a busy one. My other half runs Woodwind Direct and consequently, he takes in a lot of part exchanges. So landing on my desk this week were:
A Selmer Super Action 80, in black lacquer. This was a strip down and clean as it had built up a good few years of fluff and general grime.

I do enjoy it when instruments come to me in this state, because there's a real element of satisfaction taking it from this state, to this:

Looks practically brand new!

So that's a pretty modern horn. Now for something a bit more vintage. This evenings project was a Conn Ladyface in silver plate. Now I don't know a huge amount about old sax's, I could probably tell you more about vintage electric guitars, but the engineering and keywork on this model is very different to what is manufactured now.

Once again, it's needed a good clean up, oil and grease in appropriate measures. Fortunately, it had been well looked after and had a good re pad done in the recent past otherwise I probably wouldn't be sat here writing this now! And it plays like a dream. I've always struggled with vintage horns, finding their modern counterparts a much easier blow, but this one is a beauty.

So that's it for now.
And on the springs in fingers score: Selmer 1  Conn 3
Sore fingers!