Re-Lacquering a saxophone.

Q:

Do you refinish saxophones? If so, how much does that cost?

A:

I do not re-lacquer instruments. I do not currently have the facilities to do re-lacquer work and do not plan to add them.

The reason is re-lacquering a horn often does more harm than good and in many cases significanlty lowers the value of the instrument.

The process requires the horn to be chemically stripped of all lacquer then polished on a buffing wheel. The wheel is made of cotton but spins between 1400 and 3000 rpm. At that speed, the cotton combined with red buffing rouge is like sandpaper to the brass. A thin layer of the brass will be removed.( Notice I said,” will” not “may”) If the tech doing the work is not extremely careful, the horn can be severely damaged during this process and never sound quite the same. Once a horn is buffed it is then cleaned again and sprayed with the lacquer. Here is another danger, if the tech is not very careful with the mix of the lacquer or the spray gun is not at a constant pressure, the lacquer will be applied uneven and may drip. This has to be done in a dust free spray booth. If there is any dust in the room, it may land on the horn and it’s there forever. Once the lacquer is on the horn, it has to bake. The horn is placed in a special oven where it may take from 20 minutes to 2 hours to “cure” the lacquer. If the horn is left in to long the lacquer can burn. If any part of this process does not go 100% perfectly, the horn has to be re-striped and then the buffing process has to be repeated. Which means even more metal has to be removed.

Also the process will severely lower the horns value. Back during the 1970’s and early 80’s there was a trend to keep the top of the line saxophones looking as new as possible, (i.e. Selmer Balanced Actions and Mark VI’s). Thus many of the horns were damaged by well meaning but inadequately trained techs. As a result there are now many professional horns on the market that have been re-lacquered. Those horns sell for approximately 50% less than the same model with the original lacquer. Even if almost all the original lacquer has worn off, horns without a re-lacquer job demand top value vs. a horn that has been redone.

I have personally seen several situations where the re-lacquer job was done so poorly, the engraving , logo, and serial #’s were almost completely removed or covered due to the buffing and the lacquer being too thick. Back when I was in my apprenticeship we had to correct a few re-lacquer jobs. One situation that sticks out is a Mark VI alto in the high 50000 series (1956 vintage) was re-lacquered and then re-engraved. (WARNING WILL ROBINSON) We shined a flash light onto the bell and you could see the light coming through the engraved area on the inside of the bell. Also the engraving was so new the guy that bought the horn actually cut his finger on a small spur of brass sticking up from the engraving. This was due to the brass being too thin and the engraving was to deep. The sad part of it was the horn was pitched as an original factory condition 1 owner horn and sold at top value. Within a year of the purchase the bell cracked along the seam due to brass rot. Had there been more brass on the horn, It might still be playing to this day.

Also keep in mind lacquer adds very little to the playability of the instrument. There are those that will argue a black or colored lacquer horn may sound darker, vs. a clear lacquer horn might sound brighter, vs. a natural brass horn that sounds more natural, or vice versa. In my opinion it’s all in the mind of the player