Selmer Mk6, the holy grail – the one and only – the saxophone that all other manufacturers have tried to reproduce. The one to buy to complete the ever difficult quest to being an accomplished player and have a romance that no other sax can create.
Approximately 185 thousand Mk6 saxophones were made in the 20 years reign between 1954 and 1974. In my opinion there were roughly 50 thousand altos and 50 thousand tenors and the last 85 thousand were all the rest of the range.
After all this praise not all of the Mk6s play well !
If your saxophone has escaped been dropped squashed or just abused by big hairy biker type players then there are still pitfalls and problems that can foul that dream and shatter your expectations after parting with huge amounts of money.
The following can explain this……….
These next few pictures show some of the keywork and the wear to the hinge tubes and pearls.
B natural lefthand.
A natural lefthand.
Wear to F natural righthand.
Wear to E natural righthand
Wear to low D natural righthand
Wear to low Eb / C
Wear to octave m/c.
Wear to low C#
Below is the reconstructed key hinge tube bringing the sax into line with modern playing. Once this work has been done to the key-work it makes the sax feel like a new horn.
B natural hinge tube extension
A natural hinge tube extension
F hinge tube extension
E hinge tube extension
D hinge tube extension
The following pictures show how the pearls and the pearl holders can wear leaving the sax feeling tired and difficult to play.
Wear in lefthand pearls
This is what I have to do to replace the pearls
Remove the pearl cup from the arm
Remove pearl cup from pad cup
All 7 main pearl cups removed.
Solder replacement pearl cups to pad cups
New pearls fitted to righthand pearl cups
New pearls fitted to lefthand pearl cups
This kind of repair is very long lasting and will serve you well for many years to come
1952 Balanced Action Tenor
This saxophone was involved in a car accident in 2001 and ended up in a garage for 11 years.
When the owner of this horn brought it to me for repairing i quickly realised i once owned it in 1996.
You can see on this photo that the pad saver was still in the sax and it was a very good quality pad saver, getting it out was a complete pain.
This was the worst bend that i have ever taken on, and the hours involved plus a repad came to approx 60 hours.
Balanced Action Tenor.
Fitting a top f sharp
First stage is to silver solder the f sharp tone hole on to the body in the correct position.
This is the same tone hole with the centre removed and the body cleaned up.
This is the touch piece and support pillars
F sharp guard fitted.
The keywork i used I bought from selmer, pad cup and arm, touch key, guard.
I matched the pillars from scrap instruments, and the tone hole i made on the lathe.
This pillar was mounted on top of the side E natural pillar.
This top support pillar was from a mk7.
Selmer Mk6 bell ring replacement
This repair is good for damaged bell rings and solder problems.
Selmer mk6 Soprano palm key conversion.
I think most players who have owned one of these will agree that the palm keys are pretty nasty.
Here I go again. I couldn’t resist the challenge to modify this horn when it landed on my bench.
Removing all palm toneholes
Blocking off original tone holes
All tone holes block and heat sink plugs in place to protect the other soldered toneholes
Heat sink 2
Blocking plugs silver soldered into body
Soldered toneholes filed and cleaned
Marking out new tone hole positions
New tone hole made on the lathe
First tone hole soldered to body.
Fitting new saddle
All finished
Done and feeling like a modern horn
New mods and conversions coming in the new year including a mk6 low A alto converted back to Bb.
We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. If you continue to use this site we will assume that you are happy with it.OkPrivacy policy