PM Woodwind sax resonators
PM Woodwind is reputable woodwind dealership and repair shop located in Evanston, Illinois, which is just north of Chicago on the shores of Lake Michigan. Paul Maslin founded PM Woodwind over 30 years ago. He is a professional saxophone player and one of the most respected saxophone repair technicians in the US and around the world.
Over the decades, Paul and his staff at PM Woodwind have worked on horns for a long list of top saxophone players, including Joshua Redman, Chris Potter, David Sanborn, Michael Brecker, Dave Liebman, Melissa Aldana, Tim Ries of the Rolling Stones, Ernie Watts, Hamiet Bluiett, Joel Frahm, Bob Sheppard, Eric Alexander, David Murray, Roscoe Mitchell, Mark Colby, Joey DeFrancesco, Aaron Getsug, and countless others.
Challenge
Saxophone resonators are domed brass or plastic parts that attach to the leather pads that seal the tone holes on saxophones. As sound waves run through the neck and body of a sax, the sound coming out of the horn reflects off the resonators and allows the horn to project better in a room and to the audience. PM Woodwind (PM) was facing supply chain issues, as the prior machine shops that had made his custom line of brass resonators could not make the parts for PM anymore.
PM’s inventory of resonators was running a bit low, and a few of the original engineering drawings could not be found in PM’s historical design files. A handful of the 16 resonator sizes had to be reverse engineered, and a search for a new machine shop had to be conducted to find a source to make the precision parts at high quality levels and reasonable prices. Time was of the essence, as well, as PM had a backlog of saxophone repairs including full overhauls that would need new parts over the next few months.
Design Effort
Our team began by studying PM’s original 2D engineering drawings for their custom resonator designs. A few of the drawings were missing from the archives, but production parts from the last run were available for most of the sizes that did not have their original drawings.
For the sizes that did not have drawings but had production parts available, several parts for each size were inspected with micrometers. The dimensions and the tolerances from the available drawings were entered into a spreadsheet, which allowed quick calculations of the average measurements and estimated tolerances. In addition, the spreadsheet helped the team to interpolate the dimensions for the one size that did not have original drawings or sample production parts.
All 16 resonator sizes were then designed in 3D using SolidWorks software, and a full set of dimensioned drawings with proper machining tolerances were drafted up using the original drawings as the baseline. The drawings were reviewed in detail with Paul Maslin at PM, and then the search began for a qualified machine shop.
VENDOR SEARCH
Our team utilized a variety of methods to find a suitable production machine shop. We scoured industrial supplier databases, asked several business contacts and clients for recommendations, listed precision machine shops that we had worked with successfully before, and conducted dozens of searches on the internet with various combinations of keywords.
The first ten candidate machine shops that appeared to be a good fit were asked to sign NDAs. Initial discussions were then held to see if the vendor had the capabilities to make the parts and interest in quoting on the job. One of the sixteen resonator drawings was then shared with the shorter screened list of initial candidates, and pricing was requested. Some shops backed out of the quoting process (no-quoted the parts), and the other initial quotes were too expensive for PM to consider those shops.
Our engineering team dove back into the supplier search effort and ran several new internet searches with some keyword combinations including words that defined local geographic areas. The map feature was used on Google to show where the potential shops were located, and each dot on the search output map could be selected for a quick review of the company descriptions and websites. A qualified local shop was found using this method, their quality system was excellent, and their pricing was competitive. The first production run was ordered soon thereafter, and parts were received within a matter of weeks with high quality results.
The New Yorker – The Legend of the Selmer Mark VI – Quotes from Paul Maslin
Success!
PM was able to fill their inventory of new sax resonators in a matter of weeks, and their staff was able to ramp up their service work on their backlog of saxophone repairs and overhauls. Their new sax resonator design files are now saved in their design archives in both 3D form and with a complete set of 2D engineering drawings.
PM’s custom sax resonators get rave reviews from sax players, and service techs at other sax repair shops can purchase sets of PM Woodwind resonators for any saxophone model from Paul and his staff.
Contact Us Today
Click the link below to start a project with our professional staff.