Effect on sound ? the jury will forever be out on that ! Effect on value ? yes-major !

 

I had my VI alto relaquered years ago...I couldn't tell any difference in the sound....is it worth less now? Probably...do I care? No, would never sell it....

 

Funny how many will swear up and down that the material of which a horn is made doesn't matter a whit, yet the amount of material that remains after a good buffing still affects the horn's value. It's downright confusing is what.

 

How much does a relacquer cost? I'd assume it'd be pretty expensive since they need to take the sax apart before and put it together again after.

 

If you can find somebody to do it, expect to add $500 to the overhaul price. The sax has to have a complete overhaul because they remove everything including the springs. Once you remove the factory springs, its not likely you will ever again have the exact same feel in the action. They have to replace all corks, felts and pads.

 

Its not so much the re-lacquering as it is the buffing that goes before it. This polishing can be very damaging to the tone holes by 'dishing' them and usually will take varying amount of brass off in different places depending on how bad the pitting/scratches were on the horn. Needless to say the engraving will be affected. Re-lacquering got a bad rep (deserved) because so many jobs were done by hacks. Tone holes would be dished, engraving buffed off, etc. The Selmer USA factory in Elkhart used to do fantastic overhauls. The saxes always simply looked new and one could be done there several times before you would begin to see loss of detail. However, no such place now exists, so the best thing to do is to learn how to take your sax apart and put it back together. Once you can do that, you can wash it, hand polish and/or acid-treat to remove any corrosion/tarnish. An excellent product for the tarnish is 'CLR', available in grocery stores/hardware stores. Or, you can find a tech to do it - they usually clean a sax before doing a pad job anyway.
There are not many reasons I would buy a sax if I knew it was a re-lacquer unless the job was so good I almost couldn't tell. The difference in a horn may not be obvious to the listener - the main consideration is how it responds to the player, and machine buffing definitely affects this. One consideration that is commonly overlooked in this discussion is the effect of the buffing on the neck. You probably can see that the closer to the mouthpiece that you change things, the more pronounced the effect will be. The neck seems to take a beating in re-lacquers and perhaps for that reason the sax you get back is not the sax you sent in. If I love a sax, having it machine-buffed is absolutely the last thing on earth I would think of to do to it. I can't think of any reason I would do it. I've done it in the past but never again.

 

Its not so much the re-lacquering as it is the buffing that goes before it. This polishing can be very damaging to the tone holes by 'dishing' them and usually will take varying amount of brass off in different places depending on how bad the pitting/scratches were on the horn.

Thanks for that explanation. This is exactly the kind of thing I would be concerned about. Maybe I will try again to take it apart and clean it up myself until I'm able to get the overhaul it probably needs.

 

Re-lacquering affects value. I don't believe it ruins the horn unless the tone holes are buffed, causing the need for excessive leveling. The idea that the buffing removes metal on the open spaces that don't have the sharp edges of engraving or tone holes seems false to me. If you look at a horn that has had a lot of buffing on the engraving you can understand why it wears out the definition. However these engravings aren't very deep. That buffing on the round end of the bow is not wearing away metal. Nor do I believe its wearing away metal on a neck. I do however agree with 1saxman on learning to take it apart and clean and hand polish.

 

If it is done well (no machine buffing) I am OK with it. Yes, the horn will be worth less IF you sell it but if you want it to look nice and have it done correctly, go for it. I would figure $1,000-1,500 complete with the repad. Another option is to have it silver or gold plated which IMO is the best route as a relacquer, no matter how well done will still look ......relacquered. Plating looks great assuming it is chemical stripped and hand polished first.

 

As always, it depends on whether the job is done properly. Rather than a relac, silver plating would be the way I'd go. Silver plate way outlasts lacquer and looks fantastic.

 

Theoretically a relacquer should only affect the value of a collectable, however the stigma is now out there and people often think any relaquer has destroyed the value. If it's a YAS23, the a relaquer may actaully enhance the value, not that it's worth doing unless you happen to really need a shiny horn.

The thing about buffing is that it has to be done when there are scratches, and this applies to plating as well as lacquer. New lcaquer and new plating on scratched brass looks worse than leaving it alone. But I would agree heavy buffing round toneholes should not be done, as that area is not likely to be scratched anyway.

I would only get a horn relacquered if it needed a complete overhaul, otherwise you are paying for the dismantling and remantling you wouldn't otherwise need.

 

I would only get a horn relacquered if it needed a complete overhaul, otherwise you are paying for the dismantling and remantling you wouldn't otherwise need.

Yes, that's a very good point. Turnerjazz, you say your King "plays amazingly." That suggests it doesn't need an overhaul and yet you say it is very used, so you might take it in anyway and have it checked out. If it needs little or no work, then your best bet might be to clean it up as best you can and wait until it needs an overhaul. I believe there is a way to remove that 'red rot' or whatever it is.

 

silverplating a super 20 will not necessarily increase its value and will cost a pretty penny ...on top of an overhaul ( remember the soccer ball through the window?) , of corse OP might ask, would plating affect the sound?

...

 

silverplating a super 20 will not necessarily increase its value and will cost a pretty penny ...on top of an overhaul...

All true. The ONLY reason I'd get it silver plated is if I could afford it and wanted it to look great, and getting it overhauled requires breaking it down to the point it could be plated. Not to increase its value (as you say, it wouldn't) or because it might affect the sound (it wouldn't).

Best bet if money is an issue is to just get the overhaul and a thorough cleaning. For me as a player, if the horn needs it, the overhaul is not optional; it's essential.

 

1) I think that, now that "original lacquer" horns have skyrocketed in price, people are re-thinking whether a horn that has been relacquered carefully isn't just as good for playing. I think it's really all about the money.

I am old enough to remember when Conns, Martins, Bueschers, and Kings were considered crappy student horns and then people discovered that you could buy a top quality instrument for $400 (the King Super 20 tenor with all the pearls I didn't buy in 1978 at the pawn shop); or $130 (the Conn 6M I did buy) or $750 (the Conn 12M I did buy). Once this was "discovered", the prices shot up.

Same thing's happening now with relacquered instruments.

2) I really, really, really wish people would stop using this term "red rot" for a superficial reddish colored tarnish of brass. It is an unnecessarily alarming description of something that is COMPLETELY HARMLESS. The phenomenon that gave it its name is a severe corrosion problem that happens in brass instruments, especially the leadpipes of trumpets, where the small bore and constant presence of water leads to corrosion and pinholes. The saxophone with its much larger bore, much more open to the air, is not prone to this problem (yes, I'm sure someone somewhere has seen a sax corrode through, but admit it, it's so rare as to be meaningless). What does often happen to saxophones is that the surface tarnish of the brass, once the lacquer comes off, can be one of three basic colors: a brownish color, a reddish color, or a greenish color. They are all just brass tarnish. For any of them, if you polish the area with any appropriate metal polish, they will go away, but the exposed brass will tarnish again. It may re-tarnish quickly, or it may be slowly.

3) If your own King plays well, then I would just fix things as they need fixing; or, if all the pads are pretty much toast, just have the thing completely re-padded with new corks and felts. There's almost certainly no need to remove/replace the springs. If the TARNISH bothers you, then I would just polish it carefully in the areas you can get to easily, and then see what happens.

4) I don't think having your horn relacquered would necessarily hurt it, but I think it would be money wasted for a minor aesthetic matter, much of which would be allieviated by simply giving the easy-to-access areas a polish.

 

Rust is different from a protective patina. Different corrosions behave differently.

I think "red rot" is a bit different from other tarshes on copper alloys in that removes the zinc from the surface, leaving the red colour of unalloyed copper. It is no longer brass.
And that zinc-etched etched layer can be quite deep compared with say a copper carbonate patina on the surface, so it takes more aggressive buffing to actually remove that layer of copper.
Another issue is that the zinc-etched surface is quite porous, so easily harbours the zinc-etching materials, making the etch go deeper and deeper.

I totally agree that this is more of a problem with brass instruments, with their typically thinner metal, and the presence inside of zinc-etching carbonic acid, made from carbon dioxide dissolved in moisture condensate from the player's breath.

Yes, it is very rare for red rot holes to go right through a sax. So as you say, not really an issue. However if the sax is unproltected in an environment that is reasonably corrosive, eg player blowing spit over it (which is reasonably common!), and that zinc-leached copper (i.e. "red rot") is regularly removed by buff or equivalent slower means, then the metal will become thinner, more so than if the issue was a corrosion-protective patina. The red look indicates damage in action, not a surface that is protected by a patina.

The term "rot" describes exactly what is happening, a process. It does not suggest that the process of going right through the metal is almost complete, so the term is not necessarily as negative as some would think. A rot cavity in a tooth cannot be compared with teeth that have almost rotted away. However that does not stop it from being rot.

 

I'm curious what topics there will be on this subject in a few hundred years when everyone's prize vintage horns are deteriorating beyond repair....

 

well, the only possible answer is that you will need to wait a few hundred years.

Good luck with it.

 

If there is anybody still around in a few hundred years I have a sense that the problem of relacquering saxophones will be pretty far down the list of priorities . . . however, you have given me something to hope for! Thanks!

 

I am sure that there will be someone in 1000 years time, but I am pretty sure that it won't be me, so, as far as I am concerned I don't care about how they will deal with the tarnish of a saxophone.

Think of all those Chinese saxophones produced in the last few years which still cost less than an overhaul. What is going to happen to them?

Probably they will be ditched and some will end up, despite the metal content, in a landfill.

Landfill archeology is already a reality now and it will certainly be in 1000 years time.

Imagine what they will think of us and the strange objects that they will find in there?

https://www.heritagedaily.com/2014/01/the-archaeology-of-the-future-part-2/56891

by the way about fussing about relacquering.

ever seen this?

These kids put us, who fuss about these things, to shame they are real heroes and I take my hat off to them :salute:

I have opened a thread about this orchestra.

 

There is another possibility: a partial re-lacquer. I have done this in the past. simply re-lacquering the inside of the bell makes a big improvement. and you could do that without much disassembly. I once did a relaq on just the neck octave key. Made the neck look much better.

 

If you are going to get it overhauled you could, as suggested remove the remaining lacquer and hand polish it with Brasso or similar which would be fairly non-invasive as far as removing metal and very low risk of damaging the instrument compared to buffing. (Remove the springs or cork them well to save nasty accidents).
A few evenings in front of the TV and it will be shiny. There are waxes which will help preserve the raw brass finish.
Personally I have done this twice, but removed the springs and pads, corks etc and took the next step of wiring up all the pieces so they could hook over something, and taking them around to a spray shop which does a baked-on clear finish and getting it sprayed.
Important point; make sure they put a red tint in the lacquer (you can test the tint with a few wet drops on the brass before you start) as the Brass will look a bit green-yellow with a totally clear finish. The first time we used fence stain to tint it...came out great and still good after 28 years.

The horn doesn't have to be buffed back to mirror reflective smoothness which is what you might have to do if you wanted a shiny silver replating...don't know if you can get the sandblast style silver done; that might not need too much buffing.
Hand polishing it will hold the light a little and it looks like gold plating actually, and, apart from the subsequent rebuilding by your favorite tech you will know every inch of your horn and there's no risk of it being thrown across a workshop by a buffing machine catching a post.