Quality Musical Instrument Repair

Below are pictures of some pads in clarinet keys. Notice the chunks that are missing out of the pads.

The repair trade can be fairly difficult to break into. Unless you are willing to go to one of only four repair schools in North America, are very diligent and self-motivated to learn on your own, or happen to fall into an apprenticeship situation, there is really no place to learn much beyond instrument maintenance. Even pro repair techs have difficulty finding advanced repair information without spending a lot of time and money to travel to the occassional repair clinic.

Intonation Deficiencies of Wind Instruments by Donald Stauffer is available at Amazon.com

Bruce has been helping out in the shop for the past 4 years while he
attended Lebanon Valley College (one block east of MICNAP) as a music
education and trumpet performance major. He does most of the brass work
that comes in.

Bruce

On flute repads and overhauls we ALWAYS disassemble the key groups. For example the right hand stack keys are actually a group of 4 individual keys plus spacers, pins, and a rod that can be disassembled and cleaned. In fact they SHOULD be disassembled and cleaned periodically to remove the old dried out oil and gunk and cleaned and relubricated.

Recently a link to our webcams was posted on a musicians' forum. A discussion followed about a variety of things ranging from, "Watching band instrument repair is like watching paint dry" to comments about the shop cleanliness and organization.
I had to laugh about the paint drying comment. I suppose watching flute and saxophone repair is like watching golf or fishing to me. Yet there are golf and fishing shows all over the TV channels. There are also hundreds of people a week that watch woodwind repair in the bench webcam. So, obviously, some are interested and some aren't.

Just got back from a saxophone recital given by Tom Strohman at Lebanon Valley College in PA. I used to study saxophone and flute with him in my high school days. I knew he was a great jazzer but have never heard him play any of the classical saxophone repertoire except for occassional passages for demonstrations in lessons. Fifteen years later I finally heard him play classical and was incredibly impressed with his legit chops.
Kudos to Tom for a great recital!!!

A customer who I’ve only met twice very briefly recently did something for me that was very kind and generous, and I have no way of paying him back. The money I could pay he wouldn’t take. And besides, it’s not so much the monetary aspect as it is the unselfishness, generosity, and thoughtfulness. These are invaluable qualities in a person. How do you repay that?

This is the process we use in the shop on students flutes and saxophones in fitting the tenon/receiver area.

An often overlooked but CRITICAL part of woodwind instruments is the tenon/receiver area. The connection between the two parts must be airtight and hold a suction. If the fit is not correct, air will leak out and one or more of the following symptoms will usually be present: