It has been a great year! Very full. I just updated the Index, and there are now 274 videos and articles in there, which is kind of a breathtaking number. I cannot believe I have made that much saxophone content- and that there is still so much more to explore!
Last year, in July 2024, on a road trip with our home-built camper, I visited the Greenleaf Collection at Interlochen Center for the Arts. I met Eileen Ganter, the wonderful person who runs the place. This led to go back in October and working with them to get the collection organized, connect them with repairers, and get things moving there again after many years of stagnation. I got to meet the children of Leland Greenleaf, who remember playing in the Conn factory and watching the Stenberg brothers engrave. The brothers would give them hard candy if they were quiet.
As for the collection itself, things really have changed in the past year. Kids at the school are playing on some of the instruments now, discovering how special these old instruments really are when they are singing like they are supposed to. As of August 2025, about 6 have been put in great playing condition, and more are on the way. It seems likely I will get to repair many of their instruments over the years.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJTnnfZqKL4
I also learned how to make saxophone pads, thanks to Phil Noy of Melbourne Australia. I adapted his method (which is brilliant and elegant, using a laser cutter as the only major tool necessary) and added two things:
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A program to generate the SVG files for the laser cutter. This saves months of setup time. I used a chatbot to make it. It is open source and free.
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A new pad treatment based on his original pad treatment that seems to work fantastic. It is super simple and cheap, making pads airtight, watertight, and non-stick.
With Phil’s tutelage, feedback, and permission, I put all of it into a guide for making saxophone pads in the repair shop. I hope this is helpful and empowering for all of us who have been dealing with backorders and uncertainty.
Between these two things, when added to my regular day job of repairs, I have sort of had two jobs for the past year! And now with the Greenleaf having some real momentum and the pad project being published and out in the open, I am looking forward to getting back to just having one job, for a while. I need to try and get “caught up” at work (not really possible, but I need to stop being quite so far behind) and get back to some personal hobbies for a while. I still have a StroboConn tuner I want to finish fixing up, an old South Bend lathe I want to refurbish, and I would like to build a tube amp. And I also want to go sailing and camping in the boat and camper we built! So, time for a little bit of a breather from secondary projects, just for a bit.
As always, thank you for taking the time to stop by and read, and I hope you find what I make helpful, useful, and informative.
-Matt