Help me please.  I have an unmarked hard rubber alto piece that I would like to identify.  It looks like an old Meyer or old Bundy and has a "2" stamped on the table.  It has a shank crack and when I started sanding the shank in preparation of banding, the rubber dust was lavender.  I remember reading about the sweet smell of some sanded old HR.  This smells a little sweet, but the color is vibrant.

Has anyone had this purple haze-ish experience?

 

Purple dust usually indicates it is made of plastic.  Hard rubber would yield brown dust.


      

That is my experience, too.  A mouthpiece I worked on that was KNOWN to be plastic yielded purple dust that smelled odd and slightly sweet.  Hard rubber dust is brown and smells of sulphur.

Bill Hausmann

If you have to mic a saxophone, the rest of the band is TOO LOUD!

--- On Fri, 4/10/09, Keith Bradbury <kwbradbury@...> wrote:

From: Keith Bradbury <kwbradbury@...>
Subject: Re: [MouthpieceWork] Hard rubber
To: MouthpieceWork@yahoogroups.com
Date: Friday, April 10, 2009, 11:16 PM

















Purple dust usually indicates it is made of plastic.  Hard rubber would yield brown dust.






      

I guess it must be plastic, but I've never seen plastic, tonalin, ebolin, etc that looks and feels like rubber.  I have worked on many HR pieces and this one didn't have any oxidation.  This one had me fooled because it tools and feels like hard rubber.  

Thanks

Jim