Conn New Wonder II alto sax, in for repair!

Wow these old Conn's are cool!  

This is what is known as the New Wonder Series II alto.   

A customer brought this horn in for repair,  a play test showed that it was basically playable but stuffy and hard to hit the low notes.   The pads looked okay but the neck was loose and obviously leaking. 

I was able to get this horn going pretty well by re-fitting the leaking neck (expanding the neck tenon), then a full adjustment/regulation of the instrument which included re floating/seating some of the pads.

The hallmark of these horns is their sound!   Its absolutely huge!  This horn really sings and is easily one of the better horns through the shop in recent history.

Note in the photo the mouthpiece that was in the case,  an old Otto Link 4 start model,  which is really cool!   We found that it played ok with the horn but in the end it was decided the horn really played & sounded best with an old large chambered hard rubber mouthpiece.  

Hope to see more of these!  I have a few Conns here to overhaul but no New Wonders.  I'll have to be looking out for one to buy!

Guy Humphrey Paris Bb clarinet

This isn't the first Guy Humphrey I've seen.  Last year I worked on a Guy Humphrey alto clarinet and I remember it being quite nice. 

I really don't know who made these,  folks seem to say Guy Humphrey is a trade name but I can't really say this seems like a Malerne product,  although it could be from another French firm.

The instrument is  nice!  The wood is crack free, the keywork is well made and feels good under the fingers.   The key plating is quite worn,  its showing alot of patina!  

The bore is on the narrow side,  approx 14.65mm.  This clarinet didn't come with a mouthpiece and I had to go through my whole box to find one that worked well.  I always try to match the exit bore of the mouthpiece to the entrance bore of the barrel, which is common practice.  

This clarinet plays well.  Its unbelievable how cheaply one can get these sorts of clarinets for!

Of course one has to consider condition.  I won't reveal how little I got this clarinet for,  but it was very little.    It needed almost everything.  I think I kept one tenon cork and maybe a few key corks but otherwise it took pretty much everything a clarinet could need including swedging and pivot countersinking.  As usual I re padded with Ferrees tan leather pads which are my go to pad for clarinets.   

I just played this instrument in rehearsal today and I'm happy to have it back among the living again!

Carl Fischer alto.........Malerne!

So this little beauty came in to the shop this week, its marked Carl Fischer but is a stencil by Malerne of France.

These are nice horns!  This one has really nice looking lacquer,  a sharp engraving,  and is well built. I personally wouldn't say these are up to the build quality of a Beaugnier,  but,  they certainly sound good and can be had cheap!

You'll  notice in the pic the neck has some pull down happening.  I do fix this sort of thing but I take it on a case by case basis.  In this case the neck fit in the socket was perfect and the instrument plays fantastic as-is.  The angle of the neck is also still comfortable so I decided to leave it as is,  I really like to be able to offer super affordable, playable, vintage instruments to folks.   In this case fixing the neck wouldn't have made the horn play better but would have taken some time,  then I would be inclined to charge more.  Heck,  I'm busy these days!

Anyway I'm pleased with these old French altos,  this one will make someone very happy.

Ok so the latest project is done,  and its a real sweetheart of a horn. 

This soprano sax is in the key of C and was made by Martin,  its stenciled "Wurlitzer American".

This isn't the first C soprano I've worked on and I'm happy that this one came out even better than the last.  The tricky aspects for this horn were really the pad sizing.  I used the thinnest pads available and in many cases these were not thin enough and had to be lapped thinner, then of course using only a small amount of shellac so as to not increase the thickness.  Luckily I got all the toneholes perfectly level first so the padding went just fine,  and the horn has that sweet oboe like C soprano sound!

Vito Model 37 alto saxophone....Beaugnier!!!!

Okay so maybe you might say I'm excited about every instrument I write about here,  and you'd be right.   I have a real affinity towards the instruments I work on.   When it comes to instruments that I buy with the intention of repairing or keeping for personal use,  I really am mostly interested in vintage instruments.......what can I say,  I like old stuff!   

Here's another horn I dig.  Alot of other people do too.   I'm sure you've heard the name Vito, they've been around for some time and I won't go in to the history here but they've put out alot of instruments.......and sometimes they didn't make the instruments they were selling.   Here's a perfect example.

This is a Vito model 37 alto sax that was made by a tiny French firm called Beaugnier.  Its rare to find a horn that actually has the Beuagnier name,  but they made a number of instruments for other folks including Vito.    This horn is likely from the 60's although the serial numbers on these are not so accurate.   The deal with these is that they were sent from the Beaugnier factory in France to the Vito headquarters in Kenosha Wisconsin..........where they were assembled and set up by the folks there.  

So this is a pretty cool horn.  Pretty heavy,  very well made,  the keywork is solid,  it feels good under the fingers.   The sound is what you would call "French"............maybe a generic term but basically alot of the American horns have a wider spread to the overtones,  whereas the French sound is a little more focused........although in the case of the these horns there is plenty of sound to go around.   I really think you could pull off playing any music on one of these horns,  classical/legit, jazz, pop etc.

I'm not sure if these were originally intended to be student or intermediate horns.........really they're so well made that you could probably play one of these for life and not feel like you're missing out on much!   Seriously.  And they're criminally undervalued.  Which is good for you!  

This particular horn was stripped down, cleaned,  any bad pads/cork were replaced,  adjusted, regulated, swedged as needed.   Its looking for a good home.   Someone's gonna be happy!

Projects, projects!

Well things have been busy here, folks!

My first focus was to start/complete the work on an old Vito (Beaugnier) model 37 alto sax.  You can see this in the beginning stages in the 2nd pic above, just before its bath.
I will do a separate post on this horn,  as I am just finishing up and will be posting it for sale in the next day or so.  Its a great horn!

The 1st pic shows an old Wurlitzer American C soprano,  made by Martin,  in the process of overhaul.   This horn came to me in its original pads and I'm doing a full overhaul,  at this point the instrument was stripped,  body and keys cleaned and polished,  and I'm currently checking/leveling the tone holes.   On the topic of tone holes.........working my way up from the bottom I've had to level EVERY tone hole,  that makes 8 so far,  with 12 to go.  One may wonder how this can be,  especially with a horn that seemingly hasn't been played much (original pads,  little key wear).   The answer is simple:  they used REALLY soft pillow pads that would conform to any surface!  It didn't matter if the tone holes weren't perfect,  these pads would seal.........and also feel really mushy under the fingers.
Nowadays we use much firmer pads which feel much nicer, crisper, snappier under the fingers AND hold a good seal for a long time if properly set up.   The catch being that when you overhaul an old horn you gotta level every tone hole,  as today's modern pads ain't gonna work out otherwise!
I'll update more on this horn as I go,  I expect to be assembling/padding this week along with new adjustment materials and key fitting as needed.

The 3rd pic is a shot my partner took of the old Italian tenor that I posted about earlier, its just a nice thing to look at, that old aged lacquer!

Things have been busy, currently sold out of everything that was for sale but I'll have some things up soon, also customer repairs!

Well the mailman brought some great stuff to the house last week, I was tickled!

On the left we have an old Lyon & Healey gold plated Bb soprano,  complete with an engraving of Pan playing a flute!  It needs an overhaul but boy, I can't WAIT to get this horn singing again!

On the right we have an old Italian tenor,  I can't make out the name but it matches other horns made by Orsi that have various labels like La Mont, La velle, etc.  

This horn actually plays top to bottom pretty darn well!  I had to reglue one pad and put a piece of cork under a section of the octave rocker, but,  in the mean time we're gonna keep this one around!

Lucky for us we have a great friend and mentor in Portland who has quite the mouthpiece collection, while we were there this past weekend we were able to try out  a number of pieces for this tenor and found two nice old French hard rubber pieces that just make this horn sing.  

Feeling pretty lucky.

Old GM Bundy Paris, Selmer in disguise!!

Well I'm excited to present the next clarinet to come out of the workshop here,  an old 1920s/30s GM Bundy Paris Bb clarinet.

It is fairly well known that these were in fact right from the Selmer factory, stamped with the Bundy name.  Bundy was an employee of Selmer's and took over the US division that was just starting up, before manufacturing happened in Elkhart for Selmer USA they supplied French Selmers to be sold with the GM Bundy name..........so this instrument is really identical to a 20's Selmer! 

The wood is nice,  tight grained.  The keywork is comfy, well made, good plating. 

I installed new leather pads, added/replaced missing adjustment materials,  replaced one tenon cork, cleaned/oiled the keywork, tightened a few posts,  straightened/aligned keys, etc.

I was very excited to play it and am not disappointed.  It played well with various mouthpieces but I settled on an old Leblanc hard rubber piece that really just sounded wonderful.  

The bore is 14.85mm,  which I tend to like alot.  Ok lets face it I like all the various bore sizes for different reasons but this clarinet really sings.

It is not perfect,  as there are some cracks,  surprise surprise.  The bell has two cracks that run the length,  they are tight and don't buzz or vibrate,  so I left them be.

The barrel also has one tight crack,  It doesn't run to the bore, luckily.

I'm not too put out by cracks,  they are common in wood instruments and repairable.  And really, pretty hard to avoid it seems.  It does however affect the price, as most folks are under the impression that cracks are bad somehow.  Sure,  a crack to the bore that is leaking air will give you issues, but a hairline crack that doesn't leak or a well repaired crack are not problems whatsoever.

It makes me think of cymbals,  I often find that cracked cymbals,  once repaired,  are often real gems, and at a fraction of the price!