[sax2see]

I got a sax off e-bay with a tonehole that looks like it was pushed in on one side a little, and so it is not perfectly round. Can this be repaired and will it influence anything? The seller said it played, so I'm guessing it was already repaired, but the horn plays stuffy so I had to bring it into my tech.

 

[Seasax]

let you tech sort it out

 

[Henry D]

As long as the push is on the sides or bottom of the tonehole (top being that portion of the upper edge which is closest to the neck end) its unlikely to do much of anything except affect sealing unless its a huge bend. At the top it could conceivably affect tuning a bit. That "affect sealing" part could be pretty noxious though as irregularly surfaced toneholes have a habit of being sealed and then unsealing themselves over time as felt compresses and leather dries on the associated pad. Letting your tech sort it out truly is your best course unless you've done extensive tinkering and have a decent grasp of what and what not to do.

 

[crashkahuna]

It may not be hard to fix but there some things to check - is top of tonehole currently level, what are heights of tonehole walls etc. Good you took it to a tech.

 

[sax2see]

That's a bit disturbing, I guess. I'm crossing my fingers and hoping the local tech will sort it out. Unfortunately I got the horn through trading mine and while it is a nice horn it just had very poor response and felt leaky although was described by the seller as playing "very well." It would be a very nice horn if it responded better (about 8 yrs old Yani) but the bent middle B tonehole is not so pretty.

I'm not really sure if I want to contact the seller, because I really like the way the horn plays besides the stuffiness. I left it at the shop and will know more in about a week.

 

[crashkahuna]

When I buy a horn off ebay and it does not say overhauled, repadded, reconditioned or something like that I would expect it to need some adjustments. A tech can fix a tonehole without much problem unless it is part of other problem caused by impacts etc. At this point I wouldn't worry too much. If the overall sax is what you want it should be able to be put into top shape.

 

[JerryJamz2]

It would be a very nice horn if it responded better (about 8 yrs old Yani) but the bent middle B tonehole is not so pretty.

Considering the excellent quality of Yani's, I'd venture to say that the upper section of the body tube is bent and as a result is what caused the tonehole to distort in the first place. Not surpising to also find that the side C tonehole is also distorted due to their proximity to each other.

 

[sax2see]

Considering the excellent quality of Yani's, I'd venture to say that the upper section of the body tube is bent and as a result is what caused the tonehole to distort in the first place. Not surpising to also find that the side C tonehole is also distorted due to their proximity to each other.

well actually the bend appears to be near the top of the tonehole and doesn't affect the bottom near the body, which seems to be straight. The pad on that key has a metal resonator unlike the other pads which have plastic. Also there are some burn marks around the area from repair - this happened before and someone already tried to fix it. It looks like it can be bent back out, I don't know why this wasn't done before? A pad isn't going to seal very well over a non-circular tonehole is it? The damaged section is about 3-4mm long, maybe.. My fear is that the horn may never play well until it is bent back out and repaired fully...

I still don't know what's going on with it but I am going to call the tech today and talk to him.

 

[Kritavi]

For what its worth I received a T991 with shipping damage (in spite of very careful packing) arond the now Eb and D tone holes, they were pretty bashed in. My tech, Les Arbuckle did the repairs and the horn came out playing extremely well in fact far better then a brand new T991 with a TenorMadness setup that I compared it with. A good tech should be able to set the whole horn right.

 

[JerryJamz2]

I still don't know what's going on with it but I am going to call the tech today and talk to him.

All a tech should have to do for starters is take the main upper stack rod screw out and take the keys off of the instrument and then test the straightness of the long rod screw. If that checks out ok (it probably won't) try to place that rod screw back into the upper stack posts with the keys off the instrument. If it slides straight through and screws directly centered into the anchoring post, the body should be fairly straight in that area. Should take 5 minutes to find out. 15 minutes total to put it all back in functioning order again if all is found well. Keep the faith and let us know how you make out. This really needs to be corrected ASAP IMO.