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Goals of professional refacing?

Author: Bill
Date: 2007-01-25 22:09
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I obtained from the auction site yet another substantially misrepresented mouthpiece, with a badly eroded right rail. Unplayable. I had only just declared a new mantra for myself: Never try to reface.

Proceeding against my own mandate, I set about trying to salvage what had looked so promising - an "M. Martin Master Model" that looked to me vaguely H. Chedeville-ish. Had to take it down very far in order to restore a tip rail and re-establish the one side rail. Uh-oh, here we go again ...

It resulted beautifully. I couldn't believe my ears and jaw ... the thing sang. I play almost every evening, and I have not enjoyed a set-up in weeks as I enjoyed this (after about 90 minutes of work). But it rejected Gonzalez reeds, and I had to use a Vandoren traditional (thinner blank) 2.5/3.0. OK, fine with me because on this mouthpiece they sounded beautiful.

But it occurred to me that professional refacers have a different job altogether. Am I wrong in concluding that those who reface for clients must create a facing that plays with as large a variety of reed designs as possible? The thing about my "new" mouthpiece is that I will always have to look pretty hard for the right reed to use with it. It's gorgeous-sounding but really fussy about reeds ... only a narrow section of them will work (I tested about 10). I imagine that a professional refacer has to deal with clients who expect to slap their favorite design of reed onto the mouthpiece and expect magic. Were I to sell what I did today, my "client" would probably send it back because it doesn't work with Gonzalez #3 reeds.

Sounds like tough work to me!

Bill.

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