Push Balls Slotted Barrel Shaped and Round - Alto Sax N81A

Product Information

Dents in the body or 'stack' of a curved saxophone can be puzzling to access. Depending on where the dent is situated, you might be able to get some tooling through a tone hole, or use magnet tools to guide dent balls round the bottom bow. 

You might even need to resort to removing the bell entirely to access the straight of the body, as the opening at the neck receiver is often too narrow to allow decent sized dent balls through - and of course, the octave tube protruding into the body will then block anything trying to get past.

The Ferrees N81A (as listed here) and N81B (larger size for Tenor) slotted dent attachments work around this with a simple cut out, allowing them to slip neatly past the octave tube. These dent tools can be threaded onto the FN31 or FN74 mandrels and then mounted in a bench vise. With the slot facing down, you can feed a saxophone onto the mandrel and gently rotate it until you can feel the dent ball start to pass through. Once you're in, you can work with the saxophone right in front of you, quickly lifting dents and re-shaping the profile of the body. 

We like to use the barrel shaped ball for working in long strokes down the stack - the profile of the contact point makes for a gentle impression as you apply and release pressure when working through the dent. You can also hammer onto this barrel shape like a forming mandrel to encourage any particularly sharp dents to co-operate before moving onto the typical 'pushing' action. The round ball will give a much more specific and concentrated area of pressure - great for placing underneath impacted pillars or for dents where the location requires total accuracy.

This FN81A is a set of 2 for Alto Saxophones. Available separately is the FN81B which is a larger set for Tenor Saxophones. You can save some money with the FN81S set of all 4 which will equip you for every eventuality.