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de-lacquered selmer. what to do now?

2K views 17 replies 9 participants last post by  Dr G 
#1 ·
Hey there guys,

This weekend i bought a serie iii alto. One owner sax, who bought it like 7 years ago and barely played on it. Unfortunately, this guy had the "brilliant" idea of de-lacquer the sax when he got it. He never treated the sax well and some stuff regarding humidity is showing up due to the lack of care but also lack of lacquer i would say. Nothing serious though...

Now, what i want to ask is when you de-lacquer a sax you should naturally put some kind of protection on the metal no? what should i do to make sure the sax is so protected as if the lacquer was still there.

Is a re-lacquering a good option? Also, i thought the selmer engravings ware really metal engraved but now i guess they are not since there are no engravings over here...

Some photos here: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1xFEtQ62_glZrB_aWKMiNcikigmjs0Hhp

Cheers!
 
#2 ·
A good technicial can clean it... via chemicals (so no problems for the brass)

If the instrument was not de-lacquered mechanically... it's not a big problem.
If the instrument has been de-lacquered with abrasives/buffing... leave it where it is and move on.

I can't see any engravings on the bell... but it's not a Jubilee... so it can simply be a not engraved Series III.
 
#3 ·
Your situation is not all that uncommon ( you will find many threads)

This is one I revived not so long ago and which has yielded lots of interesting new results showing that reviving old threads is a good Idea.

https://forum.saxontheweb.net/showthread.php?196282-Cleaning-an-Unlacquered-Horn

Anyway this horn needs a clean before anything else.

Since whomever de lacquered it didn't protect it with wax or some other protection straight away it is now in the need of a clean up.

The best thing would be for a tech to dismount the whole horns and clean it (ultrasonic and chemical bath) then to reassemble it and then protect it with wax, but this will be very costly a process and best carried out if and when you need to repad the saxophone.

As for what to do now, Thomann sells two chemicals which are especially designed to clean and then protect the saxophone, how well they work depends from the state your horn is in.

Thomann in Germany has several products for cleaning instruments.
The two most relevant are for cleaning and protecting unlacquered brass made instruments:
https://www.thomann.de/gb/heydays_clean_brassbronze.htm
https://www.thomann.de/gb/heydays_tarnish_protection.htm
Thomann in Germany has several products for cleaning instruments. The two most relevant are for cleaning and protecting unlacquered brass made instruments:



 
#7 ·
+1. That would be the best option. Also, odds are it needs some pads and maybe an overhaul. If that's the case, it will cost money (obviously), but the end result will be well worth it and part of the overhaul would be a complete cleaning.
 
#8 ·
I think it would be easier and probably cheaper to buy a secondhand silveplated SA80 II than having a delacquered SA 80 II silverplated ( which would add at least €1500 to the cost of the saxophone)

Besides it is not that Silverplate is a care-free or maintenance free, by the way, many silverplate horns are now lacquered over.
 
#14 ·
Hey there Anthony! Nice to hear from you! Don't know exactly what do you mean with cheap. It is always a selmer and i can't really say if it was cheap or not until my luthier check's it so i can understand how much will it really cost me!

For now, after a brief call with him i was advised to do absolutely nothing beside making a good clean. He didn't told me how he plans to clean it (with products or not) but he said a relacquer could perfectly change the instrument sound and vibe and will never be like the original sound. To risky he said. Will ask him about the silver plater option later!

if you have it disassembled, cleaned, you might as well use this chance to have new pads (and perhaps resonators) because most of the cost is in the disassembling, assembling and getting the horn cleaned and closed.
Hm, well i will have that in consideration and if it's really almost the same then i change all the pads indeed! Thks

Thank's for all the inputs guys!
 
#15 ·
depending on which pads you chose ... the price will be impacted accordingly.

I had white ®Roo-pads + Tenor madness oversized ( and re-usable) resonators and this combination wasn’t cheap.

On the positive side, I still have the same pads after almost 6 years and should I ever change I can re-use the resonators.
 
#17 ·
I like the way it looks. If it does not need pads I would wax everything I could reach. Dis-assemble as much as you feel comfortable with and wax what you can reach. Use a q-tip maybe to reach areas. Play it until it needs a re-pad. Then let the tech do a thorough clean and wax, unless you decide on silver plate. I like the raw brass look.
 
#18 ·
This underscores the reasoning of either: 1) buy it because you like it as-is and want to play/keep it, or 2) flip it as-is before dumping money into it that you won't recover.

Investing before resale is a losing proposition because your market is limited, and the chances are low that you will use the parts most desired by that limited number of buyers.
 
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