Been out of the business for 30 years and bought a brand new Selmer USA. The G flat key stuck. Talked w/ a repair shop who said to run a dollar bill under the pad and that will free it. Told it was normal and you may have to do this once in awhile. Talked w/ various people who said keys will stick and they make a type of paper for this. Advise. THXXXXXXXX
I think you might mean the G sharp key sticking, a common problem with the Selmer design. Don't clean it with a dollar bill, use pad cleaning tissue. Dollars have sharp edges from their printing processes. Also take it to a technician. Lots of techs have lots of different ways of dealing with this problem.
Yamaha makes a product called "Powder Paper" that helps with sticky pads in some cases. On some difficult pads I clean the pad and tone hole with a Q-tip dipped in naptha (lighter fluid). (Sometimes you have to squeeze the end of the Q-tip flat with a pair of pliers to get to the back of the pad.) Then I use the powder paper or Charlie G's "Gig Dust". If these techniques fail, then I replace the pad with a brand that doesn't stick and resurface the tonehole with a fine grit sandpaper.
I tend to leave in a piece of blotting paper for a short while. Once I am sure it is dry I then remove the blotting paper. If I forget, I make sure i unstick the pad before playing.
Newspaper works as it leaves a light deposit of ink on the pad-should last for weeks-the stuff like "pad dust" etc tends to cause clogging (moisture+hot breath+dust=goo)..
That or paraffin..so I guess lighter fluid is similar...I gave up smoking and science passed me by!
I'd bet every tech would tell you that gigdust and similar stuff just makes extra work for them.....use a liquid solvent like lighter fluid which leaves no residue..... and dry-out your sax as much as poss after use
If you don't get any GigDust in/on the action I can't really see how it could be bad....
I have been using it for quite a while, and haven't noticed any problems.
A piece of Bounce fabric softener works... tried it out of curiosity. Even better, is to put it in the accessory compartment of your sax case and it makes the case smell better.
A piece of Bounce fabric softener works... tried it out of curiosity. Even better, is to put it in the accessory compartment of your sax case and it makes the case smell better.
This is a common problem on saxes, a good sign that you have been putting in some time on the horn. Emilio Lyons shared a trick with me he picked up from Rollins: place a soft cushion under the C# pad (i.e the 3rd one down on the bell) after you finish playing. Doing this keeps the G# key slightly off the tone hole and thus wont get sticky when it dries.. I have been doing this for 2 years, have not had a sticky pad since.
This is a common problem on saxes, a good sign that you have been putting in some time on the horn. Emilio Lyons shared a trick with me he picked up from Rollins: place a soft cushion under the C# pad (i.e the 3rd one down on the bell) after you finish playing. Doing this keeps the G# key slightly off the tone hole and thus wont get sticky when it dries.. I have been doing this for 2 years, have not had a sticky pad since.
I have to make a vote against GigDust. I think it's good stuff for immediate problems. But, over time I've seen players who have used it incorrectly, and it either:
A. Gets in the action and gunks things up there
B. Builds up on/around the pad over time and wears the pad out faster.
I think it can be used and applied properly, just be careful with it.
I have hear solvents such as lighter fluid will dry up the leather pads so are not advised.
A tech here advises using crocos cloth (sp?) which an extremely mild abrasive paper (like #2000. ) A few passes removes gunk from the tonehole. Good to do on G#, Eb", palm keys and whatever ones feel sticky, not too often.
The music shop I go to doesn't stock pad paper, but the salesman said that the sax players he knows use extra-wide cigarette rolling papers. I'm kind of dubious (no pun intended), so anyone else heard of this? Whatever, I imagine they need to be the kind without adhesive down one edge or else the paper will either glue itself to the pad or tranfer glue residue to it.
I'm not a competent tech, I can't hold a candle to the worthy contributors on the SOTW site, but I did fix a friend's tenor which was cursed with a chronic sticking G# (after several unsuccessful attempts at a fix including replacing the pad) by replacing the pad with a roo pad. Worked like a charm.
the salesman said that the sax players he knows use extra-wide cigarette rolling papers. I'm kind of dubious (no pun intended), so anyone else heard of this?
I have a flute-playing friend who uses cigarette paper on her flute and swears by it. Judging by how she told me about it, it's a fairly acceptable/common method for flutes.
I used to have a ton of problems with it on my Yamaha, and some problems on my 10M, but my Selmer has not once had that G# key stick in the entire time I've had it. Maybe it just has a more tense spring?
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