We offer several levels of service for your bassoon, from playing condition repairs to complete overhauls.
Get your bassoon repaired by someone who actually plays the bassoon!
Adjustment
Every bassoon service includes a full adjustment of the mechanism. A finely-adjusted bassoon ensures that key combinations work as they should.
All of the alternate and trill fingerings are checked and adjusted as needed, by someone who actually plays the bassoon.
During this part of the service, pads are adjusted to seal the tone holes and key heights are set to an even, appropriate clearance.
Cleaning
Cleaning the bassoon is cosmetically attractive but is also important to prevent the buildup of dirt, tarnish, and gunk. Clean instruments look, play, and smell better.
We use environmentally safe yet effective protocols to clean your bassoon. We remove the dirt, grease, and green and white calcified “stuff.” During this procedure, tarnish is removed and parts are polished.
Pads
When we replace pads, we use pads of the correct size and thickness to ensure proper function. On playing condition jobs, new pads (if needed) are selected to complement the existing setup.
When repadding or overhauling your bassoon, we prefer to install a mix of cork and leather pads but do offer other options. Before replacing pads, we make sure that the tone holes are level for accurate pad seating.
Body Work
Tenons sometimes wear, crack, or chip. Our shop can perform all kinds of tenon, tone hole, and crack repairs. Bassoons that are broken in half can usually be repaired.
Bocals are fragile and easily damaged. We can repair (improperly) bent and dented bocals.
We also have a full range of soldering equipment, so we can repair keys that need silver soldering.
Key Fitting
As part of an overhaul, all loose play is removed. Without this, adjustments are not as accurate, and common symptoms of poor key fitting include sluggish action, noisy (metallic) action, and buzzing or other vibration during playing.
Each key is swedged tightly around its rod. Adjacent keys are lengthened and squared off to remove side-to-side play. Posts are aligned and worn post holes are shrunk as needed. Key barrels and rods are straightened and polished to ensure smooth, free action.
Each pivot screw is fitted to its post and corresponding key.
With our attention to detail and precise workmanship, your bassoon will play effortlessly throughout the full range and have the quietest, most responsive action possible.
Contact us today to get started!