[twocircles]

I got a sample soprano sax from a Chinese manufacturer, Tianjin Oves Musical Instrument Company. The sax is a very close Yanagisawa S991 copy. Its basic tone is really sweet and it feels great in the hands. However, there was considerable, red-faced, resistance. My leak light revealed that most of the tone holes have leaks.

As I am writing this, it dawns on me I need to do one more check, but it appears that several tone holes need leveling. It is doubtful that we will be ordering our saxes from Oves in the future.

However, I wanted to see what the potential of this sax was by re-padding it and leveling the tone holes, and I don't have that much invested in it if I mess it up. I have only ever replaced individual pads and only removed burrs from tone holes.

I looked at circular disc file sets online, but they cost more than I am willing to invest. Do you have any suggestions for an alternative method to level the the tone holes? Straight files sound like a bad idea to me. I have heard of sand paper being used circularly, what kind? What grit? 400 800? What set up? Any cautions? Any references I need to consult?

Are there any old threads that address this?

 

[Chris Peryagh]

You can make sanding discs from brass or steel rod and glue 180, 240 or 320 grit emery cloth to them to do the initial levelling, then finish off with 800 grit.

 

[Stephen Howard]

Nothing wrong with using straight tone hole files - but as with any tool you have to know how to use them. I tend to prefer using them on sops, keeping the circular files for altos and lower.

Regards,

 

[hornfixer]

Straight files sound like a bad idea to me.

Straight files work great as long as they are fine and wide enough to cover the whole tone hole such as the ferree's #E29 file.

 

[Grumps]

Why do sow's ears and silk purses suddenly come to mind?

 

[Reedscraper]

Unless you really know what you're doing, leave the tone holes alone. Check with a really good repair tech on this. It's entirely possible the tone holes are OK and the pads were never seated correctly to begin with.

 

[saxhorn4]

Taking material off the top is the last thing i would do.
If you have the tools ..get in under the toneholes with a rod and dent ball and try to lift up the "low" spots
Alot of the time thats all thats needed...maybe then tale out the pad...Add glue and reseat it.
Make sure to mark your pad so you put it back in exactly the same.

 

[Stephen Howard]

Taking material off the top is the last thing i would do.
If you have the tools ..get in under the toneholes with a rod and dent ball and try to lift up the "low" spots
Alot of the time thats all thats needed...maybe then tale out the pad...Add glue and reseat it.
Make sure to mark your pad so you put it back in exactly the same.

But that would change the effective shape of the bore, and that's potentially far more serious than removing metal from the tone holes. And you'll still need to file the tone holes afterwards, you'll never achieve the accuracy required by lifting the metal.

Regards,

 

[Gordon (NZ)]

But that would change the effective shape of the bore, and that's potentially far more serious than removing metal from the tone holes. And you'll still need to file the tone holes afterwards, you'll never achieve the accuracy required by lifting the metal.

I totally agree.

 

[griff136]

I totally agree.

so do I.

I would make absolutely sure that the tone holes are the culprits here and not poor padding.

 

[Stephen Howard]

Something I've noticed on Chinese horns is that the manufacturers sometimes managed to polish sections of the inner tone hole wall.
When examined it can give the impression of a warped tone hole. In can take quite an experienced eye to spot this, and even I sometimes find myself removing keywork so as to be able to place a standard over the tone hole - only to find it's level.

Regards,

 

[saxhorn4]

In speaking of the "bore' there is a good chance the"bore isn't in to great of shape if the tonehole has been pushed into it.
I guess my point here is that not all tonehole unlevelness is a problem with the top...[could be pushed into the bore}
Take a good look. Mr. Howard and Gordon...you've must have seen this before.

 

[JayeLID]

Yes, but you very well stated that filing would be "the last thing you would do". Then you proposed your solution.

But nobody knows for sure if :

a) the holes are actually unlevel

b) if they are, why

or

c) whether there's any irregularity in the shape of the bore.

So I think their point was, if the holes are unlevel, don't just go popping 'em up from inside w/o checking other things first to determine which would be the proper Rx. As you said, there could be a number of explanations for the condition...

BTW...I agree with most replies...either files or a home-made leveler can work fine if you have a decent touch...

 

[clarnibass]

Re raising low spots of tone holes:

Most often the North & South sides of the tone holes are high (North being the direction towards the mouthpiece). These are the short wall sides that have a mostly "flat" surface at the bore (i.e. sort of perpendicular to the tone hole wall, eventhough it is curved in the other direction). The East & West sides have a "curved" surface at the bore (i.e. wide angle with the tone hole wall).

It's possible to raise the North & South sides by pushing the bore there. It's much harder to push the East & West sides because the metal will want to push parallel to the bore shape, not up. If it's possible to raise the tone hole wall there any significant amount it could have a lot of distortion to do it.

See lame diagram showing the issue. It is possible that the East & West tone hole walls are short, but IME that is very rare. One possibility is that the short walls "crush" more easily by the leveling machine and "bounce" back, which is not surprising.

Another thing to consider is that sometimes (often even on some instruments) tone holes are not unlevel in a smooth curved way. They have all sorts of high and low spots like a roller coaster. These are not really possible to raise or lower since they are just too small to control individually i.e. you want to raise a certain spot but impossible without also raising an already too-high area.

There's also the pad. If the tone holes are not level and the pads aren't distorted to match the tone hole (which they never were on any new Chinese saxophone I've seen), the pad has to overcome that non-levelness by the force of the player crushing the pad further down, to make a seal. Essentially the pad is already reaching lower than the top of the tone hole, to the lowest part of the tone hole rim. By filing a tone hole flat you are leveling the entire rim to the same height of (or an insignificant fraction lower than) that already lowest part of the rim. Then less force is needed to seal and the pad would really reach pretty much the same place it was, not really changing the volume of the bore much at all.

So... IMO raising the low is better to do only in some situations. When the non-levelness is a result of a dent, on any side of the tone hole, remove the dent to bring the tone hole back to shape. If the North & South sides of the tone holes are low in a relatively smooth curve, it might be worth raising those areas sometimes. On a cheap Chinese saxophone with non-level tone holes it is most often that tone holes just weren't filed level at the factory and filing might be the best approach anyway (unless it's a knock that distorted the bore under the tone hole). So I would check the reason for the non-level tone holes but consider all the above.

 

[twocircles]

Thanks for all of the suggestions. Saving the sax is secondary to getting the opportunity to do a full re-pad and checking the tone holes.

It dawned on me as I wrote the OP that this sax may have been damaged in transit. The manufacturer swapped cases on me to the cheapest piece of ____ case I have ever seen. (They did refund the price difference between the cases, but I would have preferred the better case.) They packed it great in 3 inches of soft Styrofoam wrapped in plastic on every side, but the sax still could have been damaged inside the case. After thorough inspection, I can't see it.

It also dawned on me and I think I mentioned that that I have another check to do. That would be checking the tone holes with a something level rather than the pad. I think a couple of you mentioned this. Any suggestions of what to use? I can think of lots of things, but is there something that works particularly well?

I have not yet made time to do this.

Once I know that, I will decide whether I have time to do a full re-pad or if I just want to try and reset the current pads.

I really appreciate the information shared here.

 

[Stephen Howard]

You're going to need something quite flat, and in various diameters to cope with the range of tone holes.
For maximum precision you'd use ground steel or glass plates - but they're not that easy to come by.
Perhaps your best bet would be a selection of plain steel washers (don't get galvanised), such as may be bought from any decent hardware store. These aren't going to be as precise as gound standards, but they'll be good enough to give you a general idea.
Buy a handful of sizes, but before using them lay them down on a piece of glass to check that they're flat. If you can see any obvious discrepancies then they won't be good enough.

You can't rely on the pads to give you any kind of indication - but are they the cheap Chinese pads or did you go for the Italian ones? The latter are much better - but both types will take a reseat.

Regards,

 

[Jazzaferri]

Getting large washers with small holes (autobody) and lapping them flat on glass mounted sandpaper 120 grit or something like that gives one a flat surafce to mount sandpaper

 

[Gordon (NZ)]

Approximate circles cut from MDF (timber) are probably flat enough. Unless you get them damp. Sheet Pexiglass (acrylic) is also pretty darn flat unless it has been stored poorly.

 

[twocircles]

I thought I would report back.

Sanding washers flat to check for tone hole (with an L) level worked great. I only had two that needed leveling: E, played with the RH Side key and the tone hole just above the RH 1 that closes on all low notes. (What is the name of this tone hole, anyone?) These 2 pads also did not seat well either. Also LH 1, 2 and 3 pads needed to be reset.

A little heat fixed leaks at LH 1, 2, 3.

E pad cup was rubbing the tone hole. Straightened arm a bit fixed this. This was difficult to do. Leveled tone hole with straight file. Reset pad. It's better, but it may still leak a bit. Planning to replace pad.

The other Whatd'yacallit hole, leveled and pad reset, but seems to need additional cork on arm to seal better, even with adjustment screws out. I may replace this pad too.

Even with the sax as is it is playing much better and the back pressure is greatly reduced, especially on the low end.

Looks like I'm going to have to wait on that total repad.

Thanks for all the great comments and shared knowledge.

 

[Gordon (NZ)]

" played with the RH Side key and the tone hole just above the RH 1 (What is the name of this tone hole, anyone?)"

We call the key the "F# key", because it is the next one above the F key. (The key under the middle finger, that you push down to play F#, cannot be called F# because it its the E key )
We could correctly call the tone hole the "Tone hole under the F# key".
But some would ambiguously abbreviate that to "F# tone hole".
Why would that be ambiguous? Because technically speaking, that is the G tone hole, because it is the first tone hole that is open, to define the end of the air column, when we play G.

How's that for confusing. No wonder you had to ask!