Sometimes we can experience that the neck fits too tight into our saxophone. It can be caused by buildup of “gunk” on the tenon and the tenon receiver, it could be that you had the neck fitted by a repair person but now feel it is too tight or it could be that you bought a new neck and it’s just a little too tight.
Not to worry – it is a relatively easy job to fit the neck yourself unless it for some reason is much too large for your horn.
First, Use rubbing alcohol to wipe clean both the neck tenon and the tenon receiver of the saxophone. Sometimes there is a little buildup there and getting both parts cleaned off can be enough.
Make sure never to use cork grease or oil on that connection – this will always gunk up over time and make the connection more resistant (fit too tight).
If it is still too tight after the cleaning, you can polish the neck tenon with fine steel wool (grade 0000). This will remove a very, very small amount from the tenon. Just polish evenly around the tenon and test if this makes for a comfortable fit.
If it still feels too tight you will need to sand the tenon. Use a sanding paper strip, cut the width of the tenon, 6-10” length and sand the tenon evenly. Keep rotating the tenon so you remove the same amount of material everywhere. Start with a grade 220 or 400. Sand a little and then give a quick polish with the steel wool and test in your saxophone. When the fit is close to perfect, use first a higher grade sanding paper – 600, 800 or 1000 – to sand the tenon smooth and the follow by polishing it with the steel wool. You want to make sure you have the tenon reasonable well polished.
The key is to test often while doing this so you don’t go too far.
You don’t have to worry about this process changing the sound and response – the amount of material you are removing is very small – probably less than one thousands of an inch of thickness. The tenon thickness on most necks are between 27 and 32 thousands of an inch. If you start removing something like 5-6 thousands of an inch then you would begin to notice a difference in sound and response.
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