Posted by js BELIEVE IT OR NOT on April 12, 2003 at 00:07:15:
In Reply to: Re: Re: Re: Nickel Plating??? posted by Huh-uh... on April 09, 2003 at 02:34:34:
Yeah, I've seen the opaque black lacquer chip off of some Asian instruments leaving bright nickel exposed. In fact, I've even seen regular GOLD lacquer chipped off leaving bright nickel underneath (a shortcut to a buffing job). Further, some of the most expensive brands "black" appears to be nothing but paint, because it is so "pure" black.
I do have a very funny story about the origin of the black saxophones that I honestly believe to be true:
Does anyone remember the funk-soul band, the BarKays? They were based out of Memphis. JUST BEFORE they did a major tour of Europe in the early-mid 1980's, they all came into my store and told me they wanted their instruments painted a bunch of crazy colors, but wanted it done by someone who repaired instruments so that the instruments would not be ruined. They had already picked out the colors, and they were various Lucite-brand aerosol (yep 14 oz.) enamel paints!
The trumpet player chose lime green with silver accents (simply masking off some of the existing silver plating on his instrument).
The trombone player had a silver plated King 2B and had me paint his instrument a crazy orange color with similar silver accents.
The sax player, Harvey Henderson, had an old Selmer Mark VI tenor that previously had the "piss" overhauled out of it. The tone holes were so dished (from nightmarishly horrible "restoration" work) that parts of some of the pad seats went in almost 3/16" into the pads in order for the pads to seat! He wanted his tenor painted completely BLACK...
...Frankly, I was afraid that if I painted all the mechanisms black, I'd ruin his pads and corks - and I simply didn't think that I could repad it and make it play again...
...SO - I said, "Harv, Lets remove your keys and just paint the BODY and NECK black, leaving all the keys 'gold' [brass-lacquered]." He agreed.
The BarKays did their European tour and GUESS WHAT???? VERY SHORTLY THEREAFTER, the Keilwerth company (Western Germany) came out with their BLACK-NICKEL saxophones!!
So I was the one who "defined 'THE' look" for the black saxophones, simply because Harvey's horn was a worn out piece of sh*t.