This being a stencil of the somewhat ubiquitous Yamaha YAS-23, this is the second I've had pass to me and the third Yamaha overall. I cut my teeth on padding saxophones on a YAS-23 about fifteen years ago and this has been an on/off hobby ever since.
I don't expect anyone to be paying attention, but this was part of that lot of instruments I bought from a second-hand instrument chain, Music Go-Round about a year and a half ago. As I recall, the lot came to $250 for this, a dilapidated Buffet E-11, and a Vito Clarinet.
It puzzled me why they gave up on these instruments so cheaply since this Alto was in fact playable when it was sold to me and the cosmetics were far better than a lot of instruments like this that undoubtedly came out of at least some marching band duty. The answer may have come when I tried to actually disassemble this thing. Before I get to that, I think it bears mentioning that the Eb keyguard was missing a screw and one of the three flanges wasn't lining up with the screw hole on the guard. This was easily fixed with a spare screw after a quick adjustment with brass pliers. The real trouble came when I went to remove the rod from the upper stack....the screwdriver could not reach through the upper G post to remove the rod screwed into the other post. I corrected this in about five minutes with brass pliers and a rubber tap-mallet.
This is a picture that describes the operation.
This picture is after the fix. The Screwdriver could not line up with the rod in the light blue circle because of the post (yellow arrow). The hammer shows the direction the necessary adjustment.
Other pics of the horn after cleaning and during re-assembly.
I don't expect anyone to be paying attention, but this was part of that lot of instruments I bought from a second-hand instrument chain, Music Go-Round about a year and a half ago. As I recall, the lot came to $250 for this, a dilapidated Buffet E-11, and a Vito Clarinet.
It puzzled me why they gave up on these instruments so cheaply since this Alto was in fact playable when it was sold to me and the cosmetics were far better than a lot of instruments like this that undoubtedly came out of at least some marching band duty. The answer may have come when I tried to actually disassemble this thing. Before I get to that, I think it bears mentioning that the Eb keyguard was missing a screw and one of the three flanges wasn't lining up with the screw hole on the guard. This was easily fixed with a spare screw after a quick adjustment with brass pliers. The real trouble came when I went to remove the rod from the upper stack....the screwdriver could not reach through the upper G post to remove the rod screwed into the other post. I corrected this in about five minutes with brass pliers and a rubber tap-mallet.
This is a picture that describes the operation.
This picture is after the fix. The Screwdriver could not line up with the rod in the light blue circle because of the post (yellow arrow). The hammer shows the direction the necessary adjustment.
Other pics of the horn after cleaning and during re-assembly.