Beuscher Pad height

[haroldtroughton]

I am re corking the pad level stops on the bottom stack of my Aristocrat
Big B Alto
Are there any techs out there who can suggest the correct height rise distances from tone hole to pad cup or at least on the D pad , or is it just down to trial & error

]haroldtroughton@msn.com[/EMAIL]

[bruce bailey]

Assuming you are doing all of the stack corks, I would have the corks thick (keys close) on the RH for starters. Adjust the corks for the LH to match the G pad opening. The G gets set (usually) by the octave key section. Since the changeover of the neck to body octave key is made by the G key (up top by the palm keys) there is not a lot of adjustment for heigth that can be made, Once the G is figured out, match the B, Bb and A corks (they all work a lever for the C# pad). Now that the LH is set, you can sand the corks for the RH. You will need to do each kicker (F,E and D) a little at a time. The correct opening should be where the F# pad (the one above the F that has no pearl) moves the Bb lever (1+1 fingering). If you shave the RH corks too much, there will be space under this lever. If you don't shave them enough, the Bb pad will not fully touch the A lever. For easy shaping of the corks, I use emery CLOTH from the hardware store. You can cut quarter inch by 2" strips, put it under the kicker with the rough side facing the cork and the smooth side on the body. With a little bit of pressure on the key (upward) slide the emery lightly away. Take off a little at a time. Teh main advantage to doing it this way is that the cork ends up curved to match te body thus letting more surface touch which will be quieter and help to keep the adjustment longer.
NOW where all of this can be off, is when the horn has had a bazillion people work on it and the keywork has been bent to adjust rather than attentive corking. This is why I look for horns that may not have much use such as the oldies with the white pads. Also a stuffy horn or one badly out of tune may need to have some play (vertical) in the keywork with some lost motion to allow the keys to be higher than normal. PM me if you need to have more info.
Since you mentioned the D pad, for starters try to have it match the E pad. One place where you are "allowed" to experiment is the opening of the low C pad. Often if D is stuffy or won't respond, it is because the C pad is closing down too much. A very overlooked easy fix.

[haroldtroughton]

Thanks to all .....The 5/16" setting on the low D pad has the other settings on the bottom stack following the conical line of the horn.
Result--- plays better than ever