Posted by Lee Stofer on May 30, 2003 at 08:57:43:
In Reply to: Re: Re: Re: Southeastern euphonium repair ques. posted by george on May 27, 2003 at 11:36:19:
Before I had my shop up and running, George and his crew at Southeastern in Huntsville AL did some excellent overhaul work for me, including those two knockout Conn 20J's that I've shown at several tuba conferences. BTW, a high school in West Georgia now owns those two horns, and they just love them.
As far as the charge of excessive fees is concerned, if you brought me some huge, silver-plated tuba for complete chemical-cleaning, where the entire instrument would need painstaking re-polishing after bright-dipping, I'd charge $400.00, too. A customer brought me a dent-free but really-crusted-up Willson 2900 euphonium to chemically-clean this week, and it took nearly 6 hours to make that instrument right. It did look, feel, and play like a new instrument afterward, and had been unplayable beforehand, so the expense was worth it.
Southeastern Musical Services has some of the best chemicals available, and George has gone to the time and expense of having a local chemical company even custom-design what he uses, to make them environmentally-friendly, safe and effective. Between that, the ultrasonic cleaning (amazingly good, but I can't afford it yet), and the rest of his state-of-the-art facility, they have the ability to do just about anything.
The general policy of not selling repair supplies is a good one, will save most people time and money, and assure the customer of the best possible instrument operation. I had a customer coax me into selling him a pad set, glue stick, felts and sheet cork so he could overhaul his own saxophone. He paid me for the supplies, and within a week returned the horn for me to do. By the time he paid me for re-doing most of it so it would properly play, he had paid more for the overhaul he was trying to avoid and had frustrated himself. I would tell the poster above that rotor bumper cork may seem like a small deal, but if one is going bad they should most likely all be replaced, and there are a several tricks to making them work their best. I'll let you watch, and you might just learn something ;^)
I believe that George Kraft's aim is the same as mine - to provide the best-quality service he can while making a fair, reasonable profit. When people try to deal with me and try to be as cheap as possible, it can be frustrating, because "going cheap" runs contrary to providing high-quality service. Good quality, good service, good instruments, good music have never been cheap.
Lee Stofer