This Selmer Super Balanced Action tenor sax came across the bench recently, from a customer who's had it in storage awhile and has recently started playing again but encountered some problems. He most recently had it worked on a few years ago, shortly before putting it away, at a shop with a fairly strong reputation. As far as I know they've shifted focus and don't do much saxophone work anymore. I'd never seen their work before, but having heard about them I was reasonably confident that the setup would be good and I'd be able to build on that to bring the instrument back to playability. Sadly that was not the case.
I've seen some questionable work in the past, but rarely on an instrument this nice, and never sold under the boutique or high-end banner. The pictures below are just four "violations" from what could be a much longer list. Sometimes as craftsmen we succumb to the temptation to label something as being wrong when really it's just a different approach that we prefer. That is not the case here. Functionality is paramount, and the things done to this instrument were directly hampering its functionality. The most frustrating thing is that it probably would have been easier to just do the job right!
If work is done with care and with the best intention then I believe it can't be labeled as "bad," but this is undeniably ineffective work that fails to deliver on the most basic requirement of a good repair - that the instrument be functional.
I put a lot of time in on this instrument, replacing many of the pads and almost all of the corks and felts. Some of that was because a lot of the pads were rather old and warped, and evidently weren't flagged for replacement at the last shop so they had to go. But some of it was undoing what had been done and that's a disappointing and tedious task. In the end, though, the customer was happy.
 |
| I don't know what this stuff is or what purpose it serves except for binding up that roller. |
 |
This is not the correct size pad for this cup, which is pretty clear.
For clarification, this is not an original pad that shrunk, which does happen sometimes on very old pads. It's a replacement that somebody intentionally installed like that. |
 |
| This is supposed to be a foot cork, glued to the body instead of the key foot. Come on, guys, you could have at least kept it off the post flange! |
 |
This pad had some sort of coating over half of it. Next picture is the same pad.
 |
| It looks like they used 3 full sticks of shellac to install the pad. Aside from looking not-great, it has the added benefit of not covering the tone hole at all. |
|
 |
| Here's the back of that same pad. There's at least one full and one half shim in there, in addition to at least two different types of adhesive. We all have bad days in the shop, but this is beyond the pale. |
