Neck on Mark VI

1782 Views 5 Replies 5 Participants Last post by andrewbowie, May 9, 2007

clarnibass

Discussion Starter · May 9, 2007

Hello

A friend of mine has a problem with his sax (and I won't bore you with the details) but one of the things he needs to try is different necks on his Mark VI which I think is from the early 60s.

My question is what modern necks would fit a Mark VI? Since we don't have any after market necks here, he can only try necks from other tenors. To narrow the search, I was hoping to eliminate necks that definitely won't fit at all and are not worth trying. The tenors that are possible to find here are new Selmer SII and mostly SIII, maybe Reference, some Yanagisawa, and maybe Yamaha (I'm thinking probably the necks from different companies are completely too different?). By fit I mean physically fit the sax and also won't completely screw up intonation. Any other (especially more subjective) differences like sound, etc. are irelevent for my question.

Thanks!

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milandro

· #2 · May 9, 2007

I think, but there are experts who would know for sure, that fitting a neck is more than just a brand problem, even within Selmer you might have neck which are not fitting well. However SA II and III, as well as M7 should fit, I think references would fit too. I am less sure about other brands but just give it a try.....You can drive to all the shops in town and give it a try

There are mail order shops with special necks with a retun policy. Barone, Gogler and their likes probably would oblige.

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johnnysax

· #3 · May 9, 2007

Tenor or alto?

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Swampcabbage

· #4 · May 9, 2007

The Seires III necks from Selmer are a pretty good way to go. They're a tad loose but a good pro can expand the tenon to fit. Or, Emilion Lyons uses just the tiniest bit of nail polish on the tenon to get a snug fit. The only thing I don't like about the necks is the octave pips are a much smaller diameter (at least on all the ones I've seen) and I think this pinches the sound in the palm keys a little. You can have a good technician open it up to spec and it should work great.

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clarnibass

Discussion Starter · #5 · May 9, 2007

Johnnysax, sorry I forgot to say, it is a tenor (now I see I sort of wrote it but not clear enough).

Swamp, thanks, we'll start with trying SIII necks. The octave vent and all that is no problem since I'm the repairer and can do that.

Milandro, thanks but it doesn't work this way here. We can only try necks from people that have the saxophones. We don't have any necks for sale in the country (other than special order) and ordering from abroad is not an option (non refundable shipping and tax).

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andrewbowie

· #6 · May 9, 2007

I sometimes use a Ref 54 neck on my VI: it needed adjusting, but any competent tech can do that. The sound is more focused but less rich: sometimes I prefer it, sometimes I prefer the original neck. It tends to need very slightly harder reeds.

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