C Melody Saxophone Restoration

[Patrick Hanna]

Regarding my earlier post, Owen is entirely correct about the placement of the "man in the moon" brace on the neck crook and he's not being pedantic at all. Well....it's been a while since I have seen one of these and I got a little outside of myself on that particular post. My bad! Nevertheless, I think you've got a VERY cool old horn here.

[Chuck Piper]

Thanks, Patrick. I have not been in here for a while and have not worked on the sax in a while, due to life (work, family, etc.) I'll try and post a pic of the neck soon. just to be sure I am understanding what you are asking.

[Chuck Piper]

I know it's been a LONG while since I've been in here. Life got in the way. I purchased a soldering iron and was able to remove all but five screws/rods from the sax, but those pesky last five are not wanting to budge. Any suggestions? I hae a hot air gun I use to strip paint off of my daughters bedroom furniture for refinishing, would that work or owuld it just mess up the finish?

[Stephen Bacon]

If the horn is lacquered, as many horns are, the heat gun can damage the finish. A soldering iron used to loosen screws can as well loosen solder joints, been there. Liquid Wrench is what I suggest to use. If the rod is rusted in, heat and damaging the finish may be your only hope. You may be doing silver soldering before you are done. I often use a small butane torch. However if the rods are bent, sometimes 'threading' or twisting them out works.

[Fred Marcuson]

it seems there is always a couple stubborn screws in a horn
a soldering iron , heat sink paste at the base of the post and liquid wrench .
at least it isn't a plastic clarinet

[Chuck Piper]

Fred, I'll give that a shot. I figured if all else fails, there is an instrument repair shop in town. I'll get dirty looks from him (he would want to be the one doing the restore), but he would get them out...for a price.

[Fred Marcuson]

some of them can be a real bear to get out ..
but keep on trying ...
lw , heat, lw ..
it also helps to have another set of hands to hold the horn steady while trying to unscrew them .
also a good fitting screwdriver is a must !!

[Patrick Hanna]

It's been eight months, so I am bumping to find out what has happened with this project.

[Chuck Piper]

Patrick, still slowly working on it. Life (job, daughter, school) keeps getting in the way of fun things like this!

I am hoping to have a few hours on Saturday to get the last lousy screws and posts out of this.