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!