February
Feedback Box:
I used to take music lessons, just like you. I entered solo contests every February, just like you.
(Kids: buy my whole calendar! $7 at the Family Music Center, 4110 SW 9th, Des Moines Iowa!)
1-3 day repair service For most repairs, most of the year! While-you-wait service on most repairs of instruments rented from us! Virtually never does one of our rental customers have to wait more than a day. And even during busy season, we can often turn out woodwind repads in a week. (String repairs requiring consecutive gluing operations take longer.)
"Bring me your Tired, Your Poor...." For 45 years, I've repaired instruments which other shops call "unrepairable". I repair all brands, in any condition, whether I sold them or not. My goal: to play "like new". Warranty: 6 months "normal wear 'n' tear" (does not cover clear evidence of abuse) free maintenance after repads or overhauls, 30 days after any other repair unless we specify before we take it that we can only warranty that it will play when you take it. Guaranteed to meet teacher standards: If your teacher finds a problem within the warranty period, bring it back with as much detail as you can get about the complaint, and we will repair it, often while you wait but at least within a day. If your teacher finds a problem within the following week, let us know, and we will pick up your instrument, repair it, and if possible make arrangements with your teacher to deliver it to him or her for inspection. (Pickup and delivery limited to Des Moines and suburbs.)
String repair prices: violins and violas: bow rehairs $50. New bridge: $30. Re-glue neck: $50. Repair, pin, and re-glue broken cello neck: $90. Cracks in the top: $80 + $20 for each crack. Violin peg replacement: $20 per peg. Nuts, Saddles, End pins: $15. String replacement: $4/string labor + cost of string (includes re-doping pegs, and resetting fine tuners. Reset sound post: $6.
Common minor repair prices Woodwinds: Single cork joints for clarinet, $12; each additional, $8; sax, $15. Average cost of replacing one pad: $10 clarinet, $20 sax. Trumpets & Trombones: One solder joint, $25; each additional, $15. Pull mouthpiece, $5. Waterkey cork $5.
Woodwinds:
Clarinet, flute, piccolo "Overhauls", $280. "Repads", $200. Alto Sax, Oboe. Repad $300.
(Tenor sax, add $50. Baritone, add $100.)
"Repad": All pads replaced. Felts, corks and springs replaced as necessary. All screws will be removed, cleaned,
oiled, and replaced, including flute pin rods. (The long screws upon which multiple keys hinge.) Rusted, broken or bent screws will be straightened, buffed, or replaced.
Tone holes will be checked for nicks and refinished as necessary for an air-tight fit. Sax players may specify
resonator style, but any other style than the brown plastic Selmer resonators will require at least another week for time to
order them. Carefully play-tested and adjusted for intonation.
"Overhaul": Appearance is the only difference. All new corks and felts even if not needed. Metal parts polished,
including
flute keys and body, clarinet keys.
Broken clarinet tenons, $100.
Trumpet, Trombone Chemical cleaning and minor valve/slide work for
trumpets and trombones: $50. Free corroded tuning
slide, $50. Replace one of the four brass tubes in a trombone slide, $100; each additional, $30. Replace waterkey, $40.
Dents: $20 to $100. Valve that won't move, $50.
Quality String Repairs Sent to Chicago
For discriminating musicians who send their instruments to Chicago
rather than use quick, convenient, quality local service, we, too, have
the ability to send your instruments to Chicago. I can ship them to my son,
who actually lives there. He can send them back to me where I will repair them, so that you will not have to lose
face before your friends. For ultra-discriminating
musicians who prefer to send your repair needs to New York, my sister lives
there, too. (Update: unfortunately this offer must be withdrawn. They have moved.)
