Musical Instrument Repairs WA

Lovely Bass flute in for some modifications

When you think you have seen it all you then get surprised again

A flute in for all new pads as it apparently doesn’t play well, gee I wonder why

For some reason someone thought it’s a good idea to file rolled flute tone hole edges flat….. it’s not a good idea, a rolled flute tone edge is typically thinner than a piece of a4 paper, so flattening that out is insanely stupid …..

For some reason someone thought scoring up the inside of the bore of the flute would improve the dynamics…. It doesn’t, honestly, sometimes it hurts ones soul seeing the stuff people have done

Got to make a phone call now and advise them to not spend any money on this flute

Happens to us all

Having manufactured and replaced the broken tenon, my tenon cork is fractionally undersized IMO

So brand new tenon getting recorked again with a slightly thicker cork

Got to call customer and say tomorrow pickup not today

Some dents require a lot of work just to get access

This tuba is an example, the material is so thick you have to work the dent out from behind

To achieve this we have to break the instrument down into parts, so lots of solder work needed to dis-assemble and then re-assemble

Start the morning off with machining the broken sections of wood away and creating a socket to receive a new tenon.

All sketched up, now just got to do some lathe work, goal is for the new tenon to be fitted and glued in place over night

That way job started today, job finished tomorrow

Most people send instruments in for a service and are surprised when we send them a photo saying, what would you like us to do here

Case and point, keyguard is that badly flattened that the key won’t open

Typical answer is, yeh I thought something didn’t sound right, now they have the option of just repairing the key guard or also doing dent work as well on the bow area

It never played right since it was last serviced at another venue, gee I wonder why.

Should not have to say this, but when fitting a new pad to a key, it must make contact with the edges of the key cup, if they do not touch you get no side support on the pad and it collapses, it’s pretty basic pad floating stuff

The bassoon with boot rot is now ready to resume its life back as a bassoon

Fresh wood grafted
Bore reamed and aligned
Bore treatment carried out
Make some pads to suit and another one leaves the bench

That is not how you seperate the bassoon joints.

Booked in for next week to repair, to much on this week to even start it

Making a french horn switching lever, Just some sanding and polishing to go

The Owner lost the lever a long time ago and has learnt to play without it.

No aftermarket one fitted or original could be sourced as she is an old french horn so we got the task of making one, I like to make sure it works before doing sanding/polishing/plating

Quite a complicated geometry to design/work with on this one, but she plays really nice and lever functions flawless