[Jbridg]

I am half way throught taking apart my old yas 23 for the purpose of cleaning it. I am looking to sell it and figured I'd keep it for a little while longer to make a learning experience out of it. Anyways, I am halfway throught getting all the keys off of it and I have a few questions.

First, I am at the left pinky spatula keys and the screw (I'm assuming is a rod) that is attached to the g# key seems to be extremely stuck. I have applied some gear oil to the screw and figured I'd wait it out until tomorrow to see if it unsticks anything, aside from this is there anything I can do to unstick this screw?

Second, once I have the whole thing apart, how do you reccommend I clean it? Should I submerge the body completely in a conainer of soap/water? Just wipe it down? Any chemicals I should use? Any chemicals I should avoid?

Third, I want to clean the pads as well, I've heard about using a q tip and lighter fluid to do this. Is that the way to go? Or is there a different way I should go about doing that?

Fourth, aside from just oiling the keys, is there any other kind of maintenance I can do to the horn before I put it back together? Clean rods? Oil rods? etc. etc.

And Finally (I think), Is there anyway to polish the saxophone? It's just a standard lacquer, I've heard that brass polish is extremely abrasive to the lacquer.

Basically, I want to leave this saxophone looking 10 times better than before and hope I can pick up some cool tips!

Any advice is appreciated!!

John

 

[milandro]

ok, you really need to read something like the Stephen Howard's manual here and my guess is that you need to do it quick and before you do anything else to your horn!

The process of cleaning and oiling is well described there.

http://www.shwoodwind.co.uk/

Having said this, I am not a technician but I have taken apart (only) two horns and overhauled then (albeit under professional surpervision).

Be very careful not to bend the keys as this will seriously impair your chances to be putting back together the horn and get away with it!

Unless you don’t have the ability to do all the cork and felt replacement (which implies knowing a bit more than just operating a screwdriver) don’t immerse you horn in water (should you do this remember that the springs need being very quickly dried and oiled otherwise they will rust! You are lucky that the 23 doesn’t have blue steel springs though so this might be easier on your horn than on other horns!), be very careful not to remove (and if you do by mistake replace immediately) any of the corks or felts, chances are that you will be doing this by mistake while cleaning the horn and almost certainly, on a different horn than a 23, you would stab yourself several times on the springs, the good thing is that your horn has stainless springs that are not pointed as needles.

Don’t attempt to use anything like brasso to “ polish” your saxophone other than wipe it clean and then use some pledge and a woolen cloth to shine, your sax is lacquered therefore the brasso wouldn’t reach the metal before the lacquer is removed.

Cleaning the pads, yes, you can use a q tip and lighter fluid (white spirit, naphtha) just be careful to not damage the pads.

It is almost guaranteed that when the horn will be put back together one of the many factors that could contribute to the horn not sealing in one or more of its parts will make the playing of the horn more difficult than it was before dis and re assembling, then the manual will show you what to do about correcting one or more of the so many things that can go wrong.

Good luck!

 

[steadyryan]

Hey John, good job, just diving in without really a plan or training! I admire the ambitiosness! ( Is that a word?) Anyway, Here's what you do:
First, your questions are good ones, but require about an average of 1500 words each to answer properly, which no one here will do! Milandro's advice was the answer to all 5 of your questions, plus any others you need answered before you're done with the YAS23... Buy a repair book! The Haynes one is great, and actually he answers a big chunk of your questions free in articles found right on that website.
But even before "Buy a Manual" popped in your head, I can't believe (especially as a college kid) that you didn't GOOGLE THAT S#&T!!! You would have been knocked backwards in your chair at the amount of detailed and well phrased, in plain english, exact answers to all your questions! Probably 80% coming from this Forum too!
INTERNET!!!!!!!!
And YouTube man... crammed with videos of all that. Probably tough though to tell the quality guys from the crap. Go to Youtube and search 'Stohrer changing the oil' and hit SEARCH or whatever the button is. There's you question 4, answered in EXTREME detail. He is Matt Stohrer, a great tech who is always on here. And he has a million other videos, probably covering all you need.
There ya go man. You just gotta Google, search, watch, read, and learn.
And then if you have a SPECIFIC type of question thats really stumping you, then come back and ask, and you'll get all the expert info to answr your questions.
Good Luck!

 

[Jbridg]

hahaha thank you for all the advice guys! and steadyryan, as a college kid, i figured instead of googling, I could get on here and ask many people who specialize in the instrument! haha

I appreciate the advice and I will make sure to check out that stuff, the one question I do have that I have googled is how to get that screw unstuck. Has anyone else had trouble with that g sharp key rod? I woke up this morning and tried it again with it having some gear oil on it all night and still won't budge. Any advice?

 

[Buck Laughlin]

as a college kid, i figured instead of googling, I could get on here and ask many people who specialize in the instrument!

Good call. Why buy and read manuals and do online research when you can just ask others to do it for you for free?

 

[JayeLID]

I appreciate the advice and I will make sure to check out that stuff, the one question I do have that I have googled is how to get that screw unstuck. Has anyone else had trouble with that g sharp key rod? I woke up this morning and tried it again with it having some gear oil on it all night and still won't budge. Any advice?

Penetrating oil like Liquid Wrench will work better than what you probably used. drip some on the threaded end, let it sit 10 minutes, then try. You may not get it off in one shot. You just wanna get the rod to move a bit. If you can, then move it back and forth (untighten and tighten, over and over). Each time you untighten, try to go a little further.

Quick answers:

1) Wash body in soapy water, rinse well in the shower (I use a biodegradable dish liquid or hand soap). To clean the inside, lather up a padsaver and insert it, then rotate it while moving in and out. Make sure to rinse well in the shower to get off all soap. Once this is done you may be happily surprised at the result and find no need for any further polishing.

2) As Milandro says, use a microfiber cloth to dry it well. You can use a hairdryer to blow out the water from inside the post holes/screw holes. Pretty sure the needles are stainless so no worry of rusting really

3) If you intend on leaving all pads in, you obviously cannot submerge the keys. So all you can do is hand-clean each key. Indeed, don't use a caustic brass cleaner like Brasso or Noxon. But you can use either Pledge furniture polish, or a very fine silverplate cream such as Hagerty 100 (as silverplate cleaner is not abrasive like brass/copper cleaners are). You can also just go buy a silverplate cloth at the hardware store and gently buff the keys, then wipe with the clean microfibre cloth afterward.

4) Yes, lighter fluid will work to clean the pads. You don't have to be so gentle as to use a q-tip. You could just put the fluid on the microfibre cloth and gently but firmly rub the pads. The fluid evaporates very fast...I wouldn't do more than one pass over on each pad.

5) Before reassembly, put some lighter fluid on the cloth again and clean off the pivot rods. Then as you are putting the keys back on the horn, put some key oil on the rods as you are inserting them thru the key barrels. Small rods like palm keys need only a drop, large rods like stack rods need 2 or 3 drops placed on 'em as you are inserting the rod (i.e. drops equidistant from each other along the rod, not all in one place obviously).

Nothing wrong with doing what you are attempting, IMHO. It is pretty simple for someone who is quasi-mechanically inclined and the worst that can really come of it would be you cannot put it back together once apart, but will figure it out eventually or end up asking a tech to spend 30 minutes doing so...

 

[milandro]

you need something like penetrating oil (PB blaster?) . Perhaps you could use some simple WD40, I am not sure...........and a lot of patience, that one is sure. You probably need days.


Are you sure you want to do this yourself? Be careful!

Apply several times penetrating oil over days , gently try to apply some force, don’t break the screw rod! Try applying heat (have you got a small torch.....perhaps even just a lighter? Don’t burn the lacquer!)

Have I said to be careful?! OK. BE CAREFUL!

 

[Jbridg]

I got it guys! The oil did it's trick I suppose. haha and milandro, I was in wood shop, mech, and welding shop in high school, I know ALLL about the frustrations of messing stuff up haha

 

[milandro]

Good.............and now Good luck!

 

[Gordon (NZ)]

"I know ALLL about the frustrations of messing stuff up haha"

Hmm. Gear oil is about the last thing to use. It is too viscous to penetrate to where you need it, and now that it is present, it will block purpose-formulated penetrating fluids from reaching where the need to get.

I did not respond to your post because its all been written here before (and Googleable), and because of the basic laziness highlighted so well by Buck: "Why buy and read manuals and do online research when you can just ask others to do it for you for free?"

"The oil did it's trick I suppose." Perhaps the pivot was so sloppy that there was enough gap for the oil to penetrate.

 

[southfloridahorns]

be very careful not to remove (and if you do by mistake replace immediately) any of the corks or felts, chances are that you will be doing this by mistake while cleaning the horn

Sometimes corks and felts fall apart right before your very eyes as you're taking everything apart. So be prepared to replace them.

While you're at it, check for any corks or felts that are borderline. Having the horn apart is a great opportunity to do this. It's also a great opportunity to mess up the regulation if you're not sure of what you're doing, so if in doubt, leave it alone.

 

[Jbridg]

Gordon, why did you reply then?

 

[simso]

I am half way throught taking apart my old yas 23 for the purpose of cleaning it. I am looking to sell it and figured I'd keep it for a little while longer to make a learning experience out of it. Anyways, I am halfway throught getting all the keys off of it and I have a few questions.

Its a shame you started of so big, ideally you would have taken a key of and refitted that key with fresh oils and lubricants and replayed the instrument to make sure you got it right. A straight dis-assemble and then re-assemble having never done it is a big calling.

First, I am at the left pinky spatula keys and the screw (I'm assuming is a rod) that is attached to the g# key seems to be extremely stuck. I have applied some gear oil to the screw and figured I'd wait it out until tomorrow to see if it unsticks anything, aside from this is there anything I can do to unstick this screw?

Gear oil as gordon mentions above was a bad choice, in future light oil and some heat to the side of the key will penetrate the layers, then a good fitting screwdriver, with tightening and lossening motion will suffice.

Second, once I have the whole thing apart, how do you reccommend I clean it? Should I submerge the body completely in a conainer of soap/water? Just wipe it down? Any chemicals I should use? Any chemicals I should avoid?

Dawn detergent is fine in mild temp water, too hot and you can possibly strip the lacquer off, too cold and the dawn wont cut through the grease.

Third, I want to clean the pads as well, I've heard about using a q tip and lighter fluid to do this. Is that the way to go? Or is there a different way I should go about doing that?

Lighter fluid and a rag will be fine, q-tip is too slow

Fourth, aside from just oiling the keys, is there any other kind of maintenance I can do to the horn before I put it back together? Clean rods? Oil rods? etc. etc.

definetly clean and oil the rods, defeats the purpose of stripping it down and cleaning it. Other maintenance would be replace damaged corks, replace damaged springs, cut and reface damaged tone holes, repair damaged keys, repair any damage on the body / keyguards etc...

And Finally (I think), Is there anyway to polish the saxophone? It's just a standard lacquer, I've heard that brass polish is extremely abrasive to the lacquer.

No, any polish will cut and damage any lacquer that currently exists, it is best to leave it alone unless you intend to strip it back to bare brass

Basically, I want to leave this saxophone looking 10 times better than before and hope I can pick up some cool tips!

Unfortunatley that is a pipe dream, you may be lucky and have it look marginally cleaner but it will be marginal.

Steve

 

[Gordon (NZ)]

Gordon, why did you reply then?

A "reply" would have been quite a long document. Lucky for you, Steve has touched the surface. But nothing in this business is as simple as just the surface. Even a decent repair manual is just a beginning. And this forum already contains a whole heap of more detail on most topics than a decent repair manual.

 

[Jbridg]

Thank you simso for the information.

Gordon, I don't understand why you had to be rude in your first post though. You called me lazy and that was unnecesarry. I asked these questions because when I googled them, I was coming up with different answers from different sources. (In some places it said lighter fluid was bad for pads some said it wasnt, some said there are polishes you can use on lacquer, some say there isn't) I posted on here to get some clarification. Generally when people ask me for help, I help them no matter how dumb the question is. I don't insult them and call them lazy for not looking it up elsewhere.

Anyways, I got it taken apart, cleaned, oiled the rods, cleaned the pads, put it back together, and it works.

 

[milandro]

that’s good news! I think that you have managed to do very well.

Recently I looked up a Catholic thing called spiritual works of mercy (to use it in another thread) I think we should all think that most can be used (works both ways in any argument)



The spiritual works of mercy are:

To instruct the ignorant;
To counsel the doubtful;
To admonish sinners;
To bear wrongs patiently;
To forgive offences willingly;
To comfort the afflicted;
To pray for the living and the dead.

 

[Fader]

double post...

 

[Fader]

snip....
I did not respond to your post because its all been written here before (and Googleable), and because of the basic laziness highlighted so well by Buck....snip.

Laziness and brilliance frequently get confused....and often go hand in hand. How many inventions can be attributed to someone looking for an easier way to get something done?

 

[JayeLID]

Jbridg...just keep on with it, it's a fun way to learn. Some folks here sometimes like to maintain a veil of mystery and difficulty about things, therefore holding back info they could just as easily provide but instead chose to type something condescending.

Eh...it's chat Forum, after all.

Welcome to this one. You will find most folks to be quite helpful...some others just like to puff 'emselves up 'bout nuthin'.
(I mean...hell...one can pretty much make a valid argument that almost every question has been asked before and therefore the answer is already out there in cyberspace someplace. In which case, I guess this Forum is kinda obsolete.)

Good call. Why buy and read manuals and do online research when you can just ask others to do it for you for free?

Or...."why try to engage in a back-forth conversation with folks who know something on the subject...as opposed to just slogging and surfing online here and there until you happen to hit upon what it is you need (keeping in mind that manuals, books and videos do not converse back with you) ?"

(That's a much better use of one's time.... than just asking an experienced person ~ or four ~ for their advice....:|)

Nothing wrong with learning by doing, nothing lazy about asking some questions here, either.

Go with the suggestions given and it should get you where you wanna be.

As noted by Southflorida...in the process you may lose a piece of cork...in which case...come back, and you can learn how to cross that bridge too.

 

[simso]

I must say I am rather impressed.

Most people on there first try do not succeed, on your first try within 2 days you stripped a sax, asked repair questions, resolved some stuck keys re-assembled it and had it functional again with normal tools.

That is rather impressive for a first go at it. Kudos.