Fixing a Sticky Baritone Saxophone Key

Video Transcript

For Expert Village, I'm EJ John Erickson with Vital Flame Productions and thank you for joining us on our sessions focusing on the baritone saxophone. So, while we've been going through and inspecting our baritone saxophone for the first time, this is a used one, so we're doing a thorough inspection to make sure it's going to be playable, we ran across a sticky key. And it's on our G-sharp key, which is this one right here on the side. And again, if you go through and start to look at the mechanics, you'll start to see that when I push this guy up here, it comes through and runs a rod and opens this guy. That's working condition. But, if I pull this down, and then take this pad and push it, I can actually push it, and with this held down, notice it's stuck. So that is a sticky key and you could actually with this down, I can kind of flick it and notice how it pops open and just pressing it gets it to stick. Now, that's an indication that the pads are probably getting old, but don't let that stop you. This guy probably needs a new pad job where every single pad, and a pad is again that little nice soft part underneath these keys that compresses against, right against here the tone hole to make the sound change and basically changes the length of the horn and gives it its different notes. And so those pads under there have to be nice and soft. If they start to get a little old and hard and sticky, you're going to start to see this kind of problem. So, in the future here, probably a month or so, we'll want to go ahead and get that repair done. But in the meantime, there is a way around this. So, again, I'm holding the G-sharp key down. It's working now. If I press it, it sticks. So one of the things you can use, is a product called Powder Paper. And what Powder Paper is, is just what it implies. On one side of the paper, there's a little dusting of powder, on the other side, it's nice and clean, you can see the logo. What this will do, is it just puts a nice little bit of dry lubricant right, let me go ahead and open it up, right on the rim so that this key will open and close without sticking. Some of the downfalls of using Powder Paper is that it can, if you use too much of it, get powder all over your saxophone which is a little messy. So this is definitely a short-term fix. But let's go ahead and try it here. So I'm going to have the clean side up towards the pad. I'm going to have the powder, which we want to actually have get on the rim of the tone hole, and we'll slide it all the way through, and now I'm just going to press it, just like that, as hard as I can. And then, I'm going to pick up the paper and move it a little bit more and press it. And then, I'm going to go ahead and do that again. So what that has done now, has put powder on the rim. So now, it seems to be working fine. I'm going to open it and push. Notice now, it comes off. So that's how you can fix a sticky key using Powder Paper. It's a good, quick fix.

Watch these related videos

• 
  Fixing a Sticky Baritone Saxophone Key

  playlist Views: 710

• 
  The Parts of a Baritone Saxophone

  playlist Views: 481

• 
  More on Caring for a Baritone Saxophone

  playlist Views: 420

• 
  Introduction to Baritone Saxophones

  playlist Views: 617

• 
  Inspecting a Baritone Saxophone

  playlist Views: 475

• 
  Playing Scales on a Baritone Saxophone

  playlist Views: 770

Community Members who...

• Favorited this Video
• Rated This Video

Thumbs up or Thumbs down? Be the first to rate this video!

Top Tags