[Henning1]

Hello, can you please tell what the matter is if you cut the tone holes too much when grinding?
A friend of mine complained about a repair made in his city. Some of the tone holes were heavily grinded, lets say almost level to the body. He asked me why this could have been done. The sax is a vintage American horn from about the 30s.
Can this have an effect on the playing abilities of the horn?

 

[milandro]

Toneholes ground down to the body? Why?

I can’t see any reason for a tech to do such a thing. Even if he had to remove a lot of material because of galvanic corrosion ( which may have been the case on a Martin) he would have had to rebuild the toneholes (hell of a job but can be done) not shortened them THAT much!

My guess is that the intonation would be completely off.

 

[JayeLID]

Hello, can you please tell what the matter is if you cut the tone holes too much when grinding?
A friend of mine complained about a repair made in his city. Some of the tone holes were heavily grinded, lets say almost level to the body. He asked me why this could have been done. The sax is a vintage American horn from about the 30s.
Can this have an effect on the playing abilities of the horn?

The only reason I can see for the holes to actually have been filed almost down to the body is a serious unlevel hole which should have at least partically been corrected by other means before filing began.

If the level is really close to the body, I suppose an issue could be the pad actually contacting the body tube (?)

Would it have an effect on performance of the horn (assuming the pads do NOT contact the tube) ?
Interesting question.

Does the height of tonehole chimneys actually mess with intonation ?

Were the chimneys TRULY ground that far DOWN ? Or is this an exaggeration ?

 

[lostcircuits]

It should not impact the intonation very much - at least on a "saxophone scale" but the question is why somebody would do this in the first place unless there are mouse-bites from corrosion or else whoever did it had no idea what he was doing. The more profound effect would be on the regulation and timing, unless all tone holes are ground down to the same level. So, "thinking aloud". maybe that's what happened, one of the holes was mangled or dented and instead of pulling / straightening, it was just ground off below the dent and then they ran into the regulation issues and the other chimneys had to be shortened as well. I'd be very suspicious to say the least.

 

[Dr G]

Hello, can you please tell what the matter is if you cut the tone holes too much when grinding?
A friend of mine complained about a repair made in his city. Some of the tone holes were heavily grinded, lets say almost level to the body. He asked me why this could have been done. The sax is a vintage American horn from about the 30s.
Can this have an effect on the playing abilities of the horn?

Pictures, please.

 

[milandro]

minor works will not affect intonation, major work (as the one described ) should, at least if I understand this correctly.

One reason why these toneholes that OP is referring to^ may have been mangled is that they were filed too energetically and then the repairer thought that instead of rebuilding what he had damaged he would proceed to level them all the same

....

In terms of filing tone holes changing the volume are thus response/intonation of the instrument: consider that a flute without tone holes would play C#--the extra volume (compliance) added by all the tone holes effectively "lengthens" the flute by a semitone. Flute chimneys add more volume relative to the flute bore than do sax chimneys, because the tone hole diameters are larger in relationship to the bore diameter, and because the instrument is cylindrical and not conical (which ties in with the former). Think about just how much "volume" you are filing away. You certainly shouldn't have to shorten the chimney by more than about 1/32" max--I can't imagine that you are actually reducing the volume of the entire chimney by more than a few percent at most. But even if you cut it down by 20% that is infintesimal relative to the whole bore and rather localized to boot. Switching from flat to domed resos would change the internal volume by at least an order of magnitude more--especially considering that you would be doing it for every tone hole.

Toby

 

[click]

Bent body and no desire to straighten it first?

 

[Dr G]

If the tone hole is shortened, and the axis of its plane remains normal to the body, then the key cup will not be parallel to the tone hole when the pad makes contact.

 

[1saxman]

This is an atrocity that must not be condoned. When you lose the tone holes, the sax is pretty much done. Minor restoration can be done by pulling the tone hole up using dent tools but this is not really the ideal situation either. Excessive filing/sanding on tone holes is probably the worst thing that a tech can do to a sax because it really can't be 'undone' like most other things they do to them.

BTW, you can't file on Martin soldered-in tone rings either, because they are tapered. As you file, the rim gets wider and wider. These tone rings are quite thick compared to the body tube and they most likely are not going to warp and should never need anything but a non-abrasive cleaning. Martin made replacements in case of severe damage but of course they haven't been available in decades, so anyone working on one should forget about filing the tone rings.

Going back to the drawn tone holes, 'pulling' is used to correct 'dishing' that used to be frequently seen after a bad buffing. When you are faced with a tone hole that has been filed down excessively for reasons unknown, it might not be possible to pull it up enough to restore the horn.

I am of the opinion that there is way too much emphasis placed on leveling tone holes and the whole thing is way out of hand. A very light 'clean-up' is one thing but even that must be written down and provided back to the customer so there is a record of how many times this has been done - and it shouldn't be done more than once or twice in the life of a sax. Now, when there is damage that affects a tone hole, some leveling may need to be done - everybody understands that. But the techs must understand that the new sax came from the factory with finished tone holes with no extra material for later filing. Every time brass is removed, the tone hole gets shorter and is no longer as it was from the factory. This means it is now wrong, and it can never be original again.

 

[lostcircuits]

This is an atrocity that must not be condoned. When you lose the tone holes, the sax is pretty much done. Minor restoration can be done by pulling the tone hole up using dent tools but this is not really the ideal situation either. Excessive filing/sanding on tone holes is probably the worst thing that a tech can do to a sax because it really can't be 'undone' like most other things they do to them.

BTW, you can't file on Martin soldered-in tone rings either, because they are tapered. As you file, the rim gets wider and wider. These tone rings are quite thick compared to the body tube and they most likely are not going to warp and should never need anything but a non-abrasive cleaning. Martin made replacements in case of severe damage but of course they haven't been available in decades, so anyone working on one should forget about filing the tone rings.

Going back to the drawn tone holes, 'pulling' is used to correct 'dishing' that used to be frequently seen after a bad buffing. When you are faced with a tone hole that has been filed down excessively for reasons unknown, it might not be possible to pull it up enough to restore the horn.

I am of the opinion that there is way too much emphasis placed on leveling tone holes and the whole thing is way out of hand. A very light 'clean-up' is one thing but even that must be written down and provided back to the customer so there is a record of how many times this has been done - and it shouldn't be done more than once or twice in the life of a sax. Now, when there is damage that affects a tone hole, some leveling may need to be done - everybody understands that. But the techs must understand that the new sax came from the factory with finished tone holes with no extra material for later filing. Every time brass is removed, the tone hole gets shorter and is no longer as it was from the factory. This means it is now wrong, and it can never be original again.

+1

 

[saxoclese]

Unfortunately there is a great amount of "misinformation", "misunderstanding" and "hyperbole" found in discussion forums on the internet about the topic of leveling saxophone toneholes. Throughout my experience, study, and research over the past 20 years I have learned the following:

Nederveen writes in "Acoustical Aspects of Woodwind Instruments" that to effect a 10 cent change in pitch requires:

- a 1% change in distance to the (acoustical) top of the instrument
- a 10% hole-diameter change
- a 20% hole length change

The "length" of a saxophone "hole" is the measured length from the inside of the bore to the top of the tonehole. For the sake of calculation let's assume the "height" of the shortest sides of a tonehole to be 3/16" or .1875". To raise the pitch of the note vented by that tonehole by 10 cents would require removing (filing) 20% or .0375" of material leaving a height of .150" - roughly 5/32".

A "typical" amount of material removed when flattening toneholes that have been made as level as possible by "mechanical" means is around .001" which is removed from only the highest areas around the circumference. Using Nederveen's formula, to raise the pitch by 1 cent would require removing .00375" of material. That would mean that removing .001" would change the pitch by approximately 1/4 of one cent.

That is one effect of "shortening" the walls of toneholes. The other acoustical effect is that by shortening the walls of a tonehole it reduces the volume of air inside the tonehole when it is closed. The volume inside all of the toneholes has an accumulative effect which causes the soundwave to "see" a tube that is slightly wider and longer than one without closed toneholes. Benade gives an illustration of this principle and also a formula to calculate the effects of closed toneholes that is shown below. The "t" in the formula represents the height of the tonehole in the equation and gives an idea of how insignificant changes of one or two thousandths of an inch to the walls of a tonehole are overall.

 

[milandro]

so, it will not be playing in tune

 

[lostcircuits]

so, it will not be playing in tune

Have you ever seen, er, heard a saxophone that played perfectly in tune?

 

[Alain Gen]

Have you ever seen, er, heard a saxophone that played perfectly in tune?

It's not a matter of in tune/not in tune but a matter of degree. If the tone holes have been as heavily filed as is said in the OP, the intonation will suffer --Kymarto's quote in post #6 is about the effect of a moderate filing but here the filing seems to be very severe.

 

[Canadiain]

I too find it somewhat reprehensible that any technician would take so much material from the tone holes. Hopefully this wasnt the type of american horn that had rolled tone holes in the first place.

Playing devils advocate here, BUT if it was a note that was speaking flat to begin with, wouldn't shortening the tone hole potentially improve the intonation...

 

[pontius]

I too find it somewhat reprehensible that any technician would take so much material from the tone holes. Hopefully this wasnt the type of american horn that had rolled tone holes in the first place.

Playing devils advocate here, BUT if it was a note that was speaking flat to begin with, wouldn't shortening the tone hole potentially improve the intonation...

Seems a little complicated since changing a hole changes the note above it when it's open and changes (to some degree every note from there down) when it is closed. The whole design is a fantastic balancing act and series of compromises.

 

[lostcircuits]

It's not a matter of in tune/not in tune but a matter of degree. If the tone holes have been as heavily filed as is said in the OP, the intonation will suffer --Kymarto's quote in post #6 is about the effect of a moderate filing but here the filing seems to be very severe.

 

[milandro]

It's not a matter of in tune/not in tune but a matter of degree. If the tone holes have been as heavily filed as is said in the OP, the intonation will suffer --Kymarto's quote in post #6 is about the effect of a moderate filing but here the filing seems to be very severe.

exactly my point

 

[B Flat]

Laziness is the only reason I can see for a tech to do such a thing.

 

[click]

Laziness is the only reason I can see for a tech to do such a thing.

Unfortunately, many very ignorant people are also very industrious.

It would perhaps be better if there were a more direct correlation, as less damage would be caused thereby.