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Stephen Howard - Borgani Service

4K views 0 replies 1 participant last post by  AlistairD 
#1 ·
All,

Thought some of you might be interested in my thoughts on the service I received from Stephen Howard (of Haynes Saxophone Manual Fame...)

I arranged to take the Borgani Jubilee Tenor which I recently purchase 2nd hand down to Stephen for a check over and service. I could see a leak on the low C key but it looked like a warped tone hole so decided I could do nothing about it and besides, the sax needed a look over and tune up.

All I can say is Stephen is a really friendly guy with an 'interesting' workshop. He had a quick play test of the horn and a look and said it was a couple of hours work. I came back and he had nearly finished so we had a chat whilst he finished off the service. He then re-play tested the sax and what a difference! It produced a great sound and really nice sub-tone at a whisper... Couldn't wait to get it home and try it out. He had to file down the C tone hole and do work up and down the stack to fix a number of leaks, reseated some pads, softened and regulated the action across the horn all for in my mind, a very fair price!

So, tonight I managed to have a play. Now bear in mind I am not a good player at all and only play because of the enjoyment I get from it. I do have lessons but make very slow progress. Well, I could get a nice soft sub-tone on Bb with very little effort indeed (with an 8* mouthpiece and #3 Hahn reed...) Not perfect but that's me and not the horn. The action is much smoother, quieter and overall the horn is just so much nicer to play. Exactly what the doctor ordered.

So, if any of you are considered getting your horn serviced, then I would highly recommend Stephen's services. The only mistake I made was not taking along my copy of the Haynes Manual for him to sign!
 
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