Woodwindrepairer with diploma

from Newark Technical College, England.

Established in Linköping, Sweden since 1988.

Specialties

I have long experience of repairing especially saxophones, clarinets and flutes. I also take a special interest in repairing the more unusual woodwind instruments.

Contra bassoon is one of them, it is an unusual instrument unknown to most people. These instruments are 4.5 meters long without the bocal and weigh approximately 15 kg. They have many joints which can leak air and many complicated key connections which can cause troubles. The key work is often bent and worn, cork and felt missing. The pads on the other hand are usually in a good condition as they are not so exposed to water.

The ordinary bassoon is more common, it is 2.20 meters without bocal and weighs approximately 7 kg. It is nearly always made of sycamore, then stained and lacquered 11- 13 times. A fairly common problem is that they rot at the bottom of the boot joint, which is due to neglect over a long period of time. Other problems are of course bad pads, bent keys, damaged tone holes and air leaking through the wood. Sometimes the cork tenon breaks, usually on the tenor joint. This is often due to neglect and careless handling.

The oboe, another fairly unusual instrument, is extremely sensitive to leakage. The slightest leak and it doesn’t play well. 80% of the pads on the professional models are made of cork, very difficult to replace but on the other hand much more lasting than ordinary pads. Oboes crack quite often; this is not necessarily a disaster. Usually the crack doesn’t influence the tone quality but it can be troublesome if it runs through tone holes. But like most other problems, it can be fixed! Otherwise the most common problems with oboes are bent and worn key work, chipped tone holes and most common of all; unadjusted keys. On the most advanced oboes there are somewhere between 22 and 28 adjusting screws which have to be set correctly for the instrument to play well.

Cor anglais is the oboe’s ”big brother”. It is very similar to the oboe but it has a different bell, bocal and some of the keys look different. The problems with the cor anglais are very similar to those of the oboe.

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