Balanced Action & mk VI differences

Steve

Steve

Clarinet CE/Moderator
Staff member
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I had these notes on the Balanced Action horns on various differences. Thought I would post them here, not sure on accuracy ... enjoy:

3 Version of the Balanced Action - commonly known as BA
21751-24999 - The inline action had adjusting screws including to adjust he middle D which the early Selmers had slight problems with. These horns also had two separate low B & Bb bell key guards. The Bell was inline (most saxophones of this era were inline).

25000-26999 - The Bell had a slight offset with one piece guard on the Bell keys. Pictures of a 1938 model w/lower stack stopper that were the posts No pant guard. Full lower stack screw adjusters which stopped against the posts.

27000-35800 - These models are the most sought after from 1939. Production was ceased at the beginning of World War II but was resumed after the war. Some models had black finger pearls due to the shortage of mother or pearl.

The Balanced Action brought many improvements which included the "modern design non-articulating" right hand table keys; the adjusters on the Bbis and G# keys and its adjusting arm.

1947 Selmer had a Jimmy Dorsey model
 
mk VI altos

Altos - early VIs (pre 80k) had small neck openings making them fairly resistance and a fairly focused tone.

Altos - around 80k through 90k the neck opening was increased until the sound got bigger, brighter and fuller. The resistance decreased. This era VI is a favorite because of their overall flexibility in their compact sound with a good control for the level of resistance.

Altos - 105k - Change in the neck bore and neck ring design. Horns have a harsher, brighter tone. Good Vis can have the qualities of a 90k or 140k VI though the "not-so-good-ones" can be termed as sounding like a "buzz-saw". production shortcuts led to sloppier action with heavier spring tensions to compensate.

Altos - 130K


I thought I had a tenor list of stuff too but I can't find it .....
 
Comparing the BA and VI or the BA, SBA and VI?

FWIW (and adding to the number of acronyms in this post), the BA and VI have an awful lot of differences and they can be easily seen and felt. SBA and VI? Not so much, particularly as the SBA really just evolved into the VI. There are a LOT of changes in the SBA, so the really late ones don't look as much like the early ones.

In any event, I did have a few things listed on saxpics.com/selmer. Got some nice article-age from Paul Cohen there, too. Speaking of PC, I remember that he ended one of his "Vintage Saxophone Revisited" columns regarding the SBA by saying that he was going to write about the VI next. That article never materialized, AFAIK.
 
My balanced action alto is in the first version of your numerical breakdown. Mine is serial number 23,4xx.

I do notice some difference between my horn and the specs you have listed.

Mine has the one piece low B and Bb key guard on the bell, and the bell is offset slightly to the left, 14 degrees, I believe. My horn had the lower stack screw adjustment on the inside of the stack, where the pant guard would be, if one was used. The very early altos with the separate low B and Bb key guards had adjustment screws on the outside of the lower stack, on the side that the fingers are, making things a little busy around the right hand department.

Some of the very earliest BA's had no screwdriver slots in the low Eb, C, B, or Bb key guards, so no height adjustments were to be had on these keys.

Also, when new, the horns were held fast inside their cases by means of a felt lined leather strap with a belt buckle. You tightened the strap around the bell and fastened the buckle just like you were putting on your pants. Those old cases didn't have the contour slots and things like the more modern horns do. My horn came with it's original case, and it's quite the contraption.

Julian
 
julian,
I loved those adjustment screws on the BAs

DSC00133.JPG
 
pete said:
Comparing the BA and VI or the BA, SBA and VI?
Click to expand...

I only had some notes on the BA and the VI.
Not comparing them, but general notes that I thought might be of interest to the general board rather than rotting away ......

at the time this also coincided with my inspections and testing of various necks with horns in relation to resistance, neck opening et all.
 
When ya gonna mention the teakettle octave vent on some early BAs?

I really wouldn't mind a much more in-depth breakdown of all three of these horns. I'll try to put this on my research schedule and help out a bit.
 
Quickie Selmer Factoids:

First, I want to mention that I'll dispense with the "Super (Balanced) Action" and just say "SBA." The horn was called "Super Action" and Selmer more-or-less changed the name when the Super Action 80 debuted in the early 1980's.

============

Approximate serial number ranges for ...

* BA: S/N 20900-33400, 1935-1946
* SBA: S/N 33401-55200, 1946-1954
* Mark VI:
S/N 55201-220800, 1954-1974 (alto & tenor)
S/N 55201-365000, 1954-1981 (sop., bari & bass)
S/N 55201-378000, 1954-1985 (sopranino)

The Jimmy Dorsey Model, which really was a Selmer Super Series horn, was appx. s/n 24000 -28000? (1937-1939).

"Officially" Selmer didn't make Mark VIIs in pitches other than alto and tenor. This isn't true, of course, but it gives you some interesting serial number ranges to consider.

===============

The "tea kettle octave vent" I keep mentioning is this beastie. It was introduced toward the end of the Selmer Super Series of horns, specifically when the Radio Improved models came out.

===============

* A pic of the BA one-piece keyguard.. The first 1,000 or so did have a two-piece 'guard.

* The non-adjustable bell-key felts were only on the really, really early BAs. Like, "probably gone by s/n 21000." Here's an example of one.

* LH keyguard? Very, very late addition. Around s/n 29000. Obligatory example pic.

Gotta run!
 
Balanced Action

I have a 1940 BA Tenor - approximate SN 29,600. It has separarate guards for the bell keys and to be honest, I think that the single piece keyguard started in the late '40's after the start of the SBA run. This may be a Tenor only thing...
 
tharruff said:
I have a 1940 BA Tenor - approximate SN 29,600. It has separarate guards for the bell keys and to be honest, I think that the single piece keyguard started in the late '40's after the start of the SBA run. This may be a Tenor only thing...
Click to expand...
Could be. I'm talking altos, above.

The first horn to get any changes is almost always alto. It's followed somewhat closely by tenor. Soprano and bari get the changes next, in about that order and then ... everything else. In Selmer's case, that'd be sopranino, bass and possibly C melody.
 
Thanks for posting that picture, Steve. Those are the adjustment screws I mentioned in my post. My horn has no other screw adjustments, none for the 1 and 1 Bb and G# bridge adjustment, nor for the front hight F.

The right hand set screw adjustment made it into the early mk6 models. My early mk6 alto has a much more refined version of this mechanism. I believe it disappeared before the 100,000 s/n run.

Yes, tenors kept the double keyguards on the bell well into the sba run. My comments on this feature pertained to the alto only.

In all my years of playing with professional players, most playing Selmer, I've never seen a teakettle neck. I wonder if it's because of the fact that it was a very high maintenance item? Necks bouncing around inside of cases and the constant stress of wedging the neck on and off the horn might weaken the solder, causing the teakettle to part ways with the neck bocal? I know that the teakettle was a very rare piece when new, but I wonder why I've never feasted my beady eyes on one in a gigging situation?

Heh heh. So now, I'll probably go to work tonight and see someone pull out a BA with a teakettle neck.

Julian
 
Selmer has always had a variety of necks. I think the "teakettle" is the most striking, but not necessarily the best one. That it survived through the Radio Improved horns in the Selmer Super Series to be put on the BA means that Selmer had enough positive comments about 'em to continue the trend.

I dunno about the "maintenance" aspect, tho. For as long as I remember, I wrapped my necks in a cleaning cloth (or swab) when I was finished playing so they wouldn't bounce around. However, I'm not most people :D.
 
My necks have always resided in a black or blue (depending on the case) sock. It does a much better job of protecting the neck as it is long enough to be doubled over, and you don't have the temptation to use it as a cleaning rag (as you might with a cloth.

Of course, the presence of two of them (with two different bass clarinet necks) in the case, looking like socks with small severed feet in them, has been occasionally cause for comment...
 
I keep my necks in Crown Royal Bags...although I don't buy the whiskey to get the bags...all have been gifts from friends...
 
Modern cases have a little side pocket to wedge the neck into, and the neck key mechanism is usually well protected by the side pocket deal. Maybe you won't get the best protection if you're playing an old Super 20, or Buescher 400, or Conn underslung. But for a Selmer neck, the side pocket is a great improvement. Now we can wear the socks and drink the Crown Royals like normal people. Well, we don't want to overdo the Crown Royal!

But the old coffin style cases had a box in the lower right hand corner with a little metal hook or a leather strap snap deal to keep the lid on the box shut. In many cases (no pun intended) the neck went into the box to rattle around with the metal cap encased mouthpiece, neckstrap, pencil, and corkgrease. Even if you wrapped the neck in the sock, it still would be moving around more than the horn.

So I'm wondering if the teakettle was a victim to the general wear and tear of running back and forth to gigs and rehearsals, and twisting the neck on and off the horn many times a day, the way you do when you're jobbing. I'm thinking that most teakettle horns were used by professional players, who tend to be very hard on saxophones.

I carry my alto in a Walt Johnson case, which has no side pocket for the neck, so I wrap the neck in an old undershirt, and squeeze it into the bell. I also keep my neck socket operating smoothly by wiping both the socket and the neck tenon dry with a soft handkerchief that I carry in the case for that purpose. And I avoid stress and wear and tear to my neck socket by always placing the mouthpiece onto the neck before I put the neck into the socket. When I'm finished playing, I remove the neck from the horn with the mouthpiece still attached, then I remove the piece fron the neck. Pushing the mouthpiece on, and then pulling it off the cork while the neck is in the socket is very hard on the socket.

Julian
 
I've always had such full compartments in my sax cases that the neck isn't going anywhere when it's in there in its sock. Of course, a tenor neck is too long for this treatment, but also (of course) I have never willingly owned a tenor so my experience with this problem has been minimal.

(The first time that I owned a tenor, it was part of a bulk purchase (SATB) back when I was a mere sprout. 'Though I thought it wise at the time, it turned out that 905% or more of my 'gigging' time was spent on just the alto and baritone. So, I hardly missed the tenor and the soprano when I was coerced into selling them to buy a new car back in the 1970's.)

(The second time around, my wife found the famous $400 Mark VI, found by my wife in the want ads. I used it perhaps twenty times before "unloading it" for (literally) thousands of dollars more. The neck didn't have enough time to get damaged.)

In my bass clarinet case, the two necks go into their respective (and color coded) socks, and from there are placed alongside of the bell, where they fit perfectly.
 
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