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Unlacquering an brushing a Conn Panamerica

2K views 16 replies 7 participants last post by  John Kotches 
#1 ·
A while ago I got two Conn Panamericans in exchange for a overhauled soprano.
Both saxes had the lacquer in a very poor state.
So I decided to unlacquer the body and keys of one of them and give it a nice brushed appearance.
I am quite satisfied with the result.
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But it looks a little bit naked ;-).

btw. the sax is for sale and you can find it an ebay.
 
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#7 ·
Thanks...BTW it looks great!

Very important to sand/brush, as you did, in only one direction. Otherwise, it just looks like a bunch of scratches, or like a brush paint job, where it's very obvious.
 
#8 ·
Johan's thread inspired me and I'm working on a similar style of brushed finish to my Zephyr, which is suffering from the visual effect of areally bad lacquer. I think I will call it a Zatin Zephyr ;)

I'm using ScotchBrite extreme scrub instead of sand paper.

It is a lot of work, but I am pleased with preliminary results. I will be keeping the engraving and the Bell in polished bronze. The rest will be brushed.

Thanks for the inspiration!

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#12 ·
I'll show you the work in progress later today when there's natural lighting available. It's tarnished pretty quickly.

The horn is getting an overhaul in the spring, so it'll get cleaned up, the spots I can't reach will get worked on and get a coat of renaissance wax to slow down the tarnishing.

I've debated getting it silver plated, because I love the look of a silver horn but I am on the fence about that.

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#14 ·
Paul:

I have Renaissance wax already on hand. I'm going to give my silver soprano body a coat before the pad work commences. I don't know if Turtle Wax would work as I want minimal shine. It would work in the literal sense, but not aesthetically is what I'm trying to say.

Anyway here's a pic or several. Starting with the front side of the bell. Either the horn was buffed before a relacquer or the engraving wasn't very deep. I suspect the former. This area and the bell are all that I want to be bright...

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The bell needs a good cleaning which is fairly easy to get to. :)

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This is the bow which is doing fairly well. A few spots with dings I haven't dug down into yet.

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This shot is a close-up of the upper stack. It has some of the hideous "original" relacquer. There's a layer of dark and a layer of light. Made to look really old, and failing to do so. The dark is liver of sulfate according to my tech. The entire horn, save for the engraving on the bell had this.

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This is some of the lower stack and a side-on view of the bell.

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I've been messing around with some Caswell rub on silver plate with the neck and it isn't working well. One round of polish and it's gone. I might send the neck only off for silver plating at some point.

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This is the first time I've ever attempted something like this. It's been achieved with three principal ingredients... ScotchBrite extreme, elbow grease and time. It is not perfect but I am generally pleased with the results.

I would never do this to a horn with a good lacquer, relacquer, or a plated finish. And no one has to live with the look but me :)

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#15 ·
On the older Zephyrs (don't know about newer ones) the hinge tubes are nickel with lacquer to match the body. The rest of the instrument is brass.

If somebody knows how to do a brushed or satin finish on nickel, I'm all ears :)

Added on Edit:

Apparently Scotch Brite works there too. Guess I'll see soon enough.

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#16 ·
Looks like you have the task well in hand.
Are you using Scotch Brite to do the brush look? I can never remember which type does it.
 
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