Might anyone be interested in following a (101-year-old) BASS saxophone restoration thread?

[bloke]

About as interesting as an alto clarinet, or viola INTONATION thread……

EXCEPT...
It's BASS and - not only that, but - it FUNKY and BIG bass

[Schlitzz]

[bloke]

Some of the best bari players have a bari with a low A (concert C, which is a handy pitch) but they are not willing to sell their Selmer Paris with range only to low B flat, because it's just better.

[bloke]

just bought this:


The company owner was extremely nice to me.
I believe this (re: looking at pictures) is the same as the German K&M bass sax stand...
This company owner reports to me that they are going to a different design.
NO jobbers in the USA carry the K&M, but - even if they did - this gent gave me (it seems to me...??) about the equivalent of dealer cost on a K&M and didn't even charge me any freight.


Pictured is a Selmer-Paris style (Chinese) bass saxophone, but the stand functions equally well - reportedly - with the taller early 20th century American-made basses.
Well - as can be seen - the height is adjustable.


so - for comparison - here's the K&M (along with its fancy-at-least-to-me price)

https://www.prowinds.com/product/12549/Saxophone_Stands

[bloke]

OK...a couple of things are beginning to happen.

This chunk of 30mm brass (to make a couple of tenons to make a couple of SHORTER necks for this thing) arrived from the UK, today:




AND...
This arrived today as well, so - finally - it's off the couch.
(again: that's a Conn 12M BARITONE sax neck, to temporarily bring everything up to pitch)
If you're noticing that (though ugly) there aren't many dents, that's because I did some work on it - a couple of weeks ago.

[bloke]

A friend (who has been playing bass saxophone professionally for three decades) and I (who just recently acquired mine) both experience very low tuning (top of left hand) and somewhat low tuning (bottom of right hand) with our 101-year-old (serial numbers within a couple hundred numbers of each other) Buescher bass saxophones.

Anyone who chooses to is - of course - free to respond with suppositions/criticisms re: what about... leaks, pad height, mouthpiece (mine is the o.e.m. Buescher-stamped mouthpiece in mint condition), embouchure, reed, "low pitch", "you're not doing it right", "says who/says you", and whatever, but I've already tested a very rough mock-up neck (which completely solved the problem) and - today - I went ahead and fabricated the first (of two - one for me, and one for my friend) "final version" shorter neck tube. (This wasn't particularly easy for me to fabricate, as (though 45 years at it) I'm a repair-guy (not an instrument-maker), and (obviously) don't have - LOL - a "bass saxophone neck mold" (nor hydraulic puller) laying around waiting to be of use. (again: Anyone is absolutely welcome to criticize this tack, but I won't be offering any rebuttals...When a woodwind instrument plays generally quite flat at the top and somewhat flat at the bottom - the capillary portion of the instrument is obviously too long (particularly when - simply - shortening that portion of any instrument completely eliminates the issue, and - those whose same-make instruments don't feature this same issue - I'm truly very happy for you...but my instrument - and my friend's - have been problematic, and this will fix the problem with both of them.)

Sometime in the next few days (because I have customer work to do - which pays the bills) some copies of my original male connector (temporarily removed from the o.e.m. neck tube - as seen) will be fabricated on the lathe...I've already ordered and received the 30mm diameter cylindrical chunk of brass required to make those.
This should define my friend's playing (sans epic lipping and working very hard to do a good job with good tuning) as far easier and more pleasurable, as well as my own playing being defined as considerably more pleasurable from the very beginning of my own bass saxophone journey.

[bloke]

IF I'M LUCKY...

I believe that I've found some 3-inch diameter saxophone pads (77mm, the required size for the low B♭ pad cup. )

We will need to additionally buy a 68mm pad (low B♮) and - by the time we get to the C♯ - we have things that large (still, VERY large) in stock.

[arpthark]

Ignorant about saxes:

does that thing take an absurdly-large reed?

[bloke]

Ignorant about saxes:

does that thing take an absurdly-large reed?

I am amazingly fortunate to have the original oem mouthpiece with this instrument.

Baritone saxophone reeds seem to do fine on it, but there ARE "bass saxophone" reeds made.

Also contra-alto contrabass might work, but might also be slightly too wide.

Many who play bass saxophone use _[this one that seems to work ok]__ baritone saxophone mouthpieces on them.

[bloke]

re: installing bottom brace on the shorter neck

- I can't track down the raw material, but I can get a new BENT 20K brace, straighten it out, and re-bend it.

- I'm going to WAIT on installing it, because I don't want to run it so far down to the small end that (??) the mouthpiece won't go on far enough (after all the trouble I went to) for A=440 tuning.

[bloke]

OK...

GIGANTIC (nearly-3-inch and one absolutely-3-inch) pads have been secured for the bell keys, they were over $10 each, but - well - there are only three of them. For the 3-inch pad, I went ahead a bought BOTH 76mm and a 77mm pads, so that Mrs. bloke can decide which one fits best in that huge pad cup.

The rest of the pads (around to the low C key - which is still formidable in diameter) are sizes that we keep in stock.

For those who know what these are, this instrument used the Buescher pads (which have METAL backs, and are SNAPPED into place with studs brazed into the pad cups). We have several tightly-closed glass jars of original/genuine (replicas no longer feature metal backs) Buescher pads, but I'm pretty sure that we're going to go with "normal" pads - cutting a generous hole out of the middle of each one (to allow for the studs and tone-booster snaps.

[bloke]

OK...
The male connector is fabricated, fits, soldered in place, the instrument NOW plays (blowing past epic leaks) easily at A+440 (top to bottom) and is ready to be restored.







Went ahead and ran off four extras to use up the hunk of brass.

There will be people who will be able to use these...


The ORIGINAL one (the brown one - in the front) will be re-soldered to the oem neck tube (which is way too long to play at A=440, but - regardless - I didn't want to d!ck up the original neck).

[bloke]

The strip of reinforcement under the neck is actually more like the thin/narrow ribbing on those Weril/Dynasty 6/4 sousaphones.

Maybe (??) I have some stuff like that up on the wall.

[bloke]

I got a soft/thin Légère brand synthetic reed in the mail today, and - with the short neck, and even with the century old pads - I got really good A=440 intonation out of both registers. I'm getting really eager to restore this instrument.

[bloke]

I'm not QUITE ready to take this apart, pick over the posts' positions, remove the small dents, gently polish everything, lacquer everything, and then have Mrs. bloke re-pad it. (She's still finishing up the "steampunk" Conn baritone saxophone (another thread.

BUT...

Here's me running down through two octaves of C ("concert" B-flat) scales down to this concert pitch:

CC.png (4.4 KiB) Viewed 231 times

...with the 101-year-old original Buescher "snap-in" (HORRIBLY leaky and some actually cut-through-the-leather) pads.

I stuck a SUPER-soft reed on the mouthpiece (which helps blow past the leaks).

THE REASON why I did NOT play the bottom note of the scale is because that requires that the first (huge) pad on the bell be closed...and I REMOVED those three (rotten) pads in order to SIZE them and order REPLACEMENTS for them (as - again - we just don't normally stock pads that are 3-inches in diameter. )


The upper octave was a bit of a struggle, as the lower octave vent key's needle spring is too short (and - thus - that octave vent doesn't open)...so I just had to "over-blow" - as with a flute, etc.

@Yorkboy, this is with the shorter neck that I made. I'm not having to bite in the least to play at this pitch level. Of course - using a super-soft reed, if I did bite, the reed would completely close up and I couldn't play anything.

[bloke]

...so "B-flat" bass saxophones' range (unless some really expensive extended-range one) is to this concert pitch:

bass sax lowest.png (7.96 KiB) Viewed 203 times

[bloke]

As much as some of you surely hope that I won't, after this instrument is completely redone with nice new pads that don't have gigantic leaks in them, I just might post another two octave scale. Hopefully it will be much louder and stronger sounding, and I'll be able to play it with a #3 (medium thickness) reed.

Some of you wealthy guys are likely trying to think of something nice to give me for Christmas - in exchange for all the entertainment I offer here. They're actually is a place in China that has a bunch of really nice hard cases that fit these Conn and Buescher bass saxophones built a century ago. They were copied in China up until around 2015 or so, and the Chinese case factory had a bunch of the nice quality hard cases left over.

(' might barter for repair work considered to be worth more than the cost of the case...??)

[Mary Ann]

Quite a few years ago in one of the community bands I was in -- a lady had a Buescher bass sax and she read bass clef. About my size, got a very good sound and played in tune to boot.
Moved to California and I didn't get a chance to buy it first.
We had a contra-alto clarinet in that same band for a while, too. Paperclip.

[bloke]

A friend of mine has a Hamilton stand made specifically for bass saxophone which has three little metal wheels, is built like a tank, and allows the instrument to be held at just the angle that a player would wish to hold it for playing. It's amazing, and I'm jealous.