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3,094 Posts
Were '80s metal Dukoffs meant to have a concave table? Well, it's flat now!
I dug out my old alto Dukoff D7 which I haven't used for well over 10 years as I had loads of trouble with it squeaking (and have used Lawtons ever since), but I thought I'd have a go at refacing it - it was trial and error and purely an experiment, and to be honest I didn't have anything to lose if it all went wrong.
I've never refaced a mouthpiece before, but I modified the inside years back by smoothing out the back bore and leaving the step almost as it was, burnishing it all smooth. As the 'Silverite' alloy is mega soft this was dead easy, almost like carving cheese.
I used 800 grit on a large granite surface plate to initially flatten the table down (which took some doing as it was very concave, most likely the reason for it leaking judging by the watermarks), then 1200 to finish it and redo the lay to get a nice smooth curve and tidy up the tip rail (as well as reshape the tip rail to make it more curved), and now it plays like a dream and holds a good vacuum which it never used to.
I think it's somewhere between a 6 to a 6* now without measuring it (it's a closer tip opening than my Lawton 7* - I don't want to put anything metal near the tip rail for fear of damaging it, what with this 'Silverite' alloy being so soft - even putting the reed on has marked the table!), and I haven't measured the length of lay - just did it all by sight, but it's a definite improvement on what it once was.
I dug out my old alto Dukoff D7 which I haven't used for well over 10 years as I had loads of trouble with it squeaking (and have used Lawtons ever since), but I thought I'd have a go at refacing it - it was trial and error and purely an experiment, and to be honest I didn't have anything to lose if it all went wrong.
I've never refaced a mouthpiece before, but I modified the inside years back by smoothing out the back bore and leaving the step almost as it was, burnishing it all smooth. As the 'Silverite' alloy is mega soft this was dead easy, almost like carving cheese.
I used 800 grit on a large granite surface plate to initially flatten the table down (which took some doing as it was very concave, most likely the reason for it leaking judging by the watermarks), then 1200 to finish it and redo the lay to get a nice smooth curve and tidy up the tip rail (as well as reshape the tip rail to make it more curved), and now it plays like a dream and holds a good vacuum which it never used to.
I think it's somewhere between a 6 to a 6* now without measuring it (it's a closer tip opening than my Lawton 7* - I don't want to put anything metal near the tip rail for fear of damaging it, what with this 'Silverite' alloy being so soft - even putting the reed on has marked the table!), and I haven't measured the length of lay - just did it all by sight, but it's a definite improvement on what it once was.
