As many of you know, I was missing last week. Did you think I was lying on a beach in the Maldives? Think again! I attended an intensive course in Woodwind Repair at the Trevor Head School in Wales.

I’ve been doing the odd repair here and there on my own instruments for a while now, but I wanted to learn some more skills and ultimately how to give an instrument a full service. We worked from 9am-7pm every day under the expert tutelage of Gary Mills (an ex-Navy Warrant Officer and Engineer) learning how to diagnose and fix problems like leaks, rust, cracks, dents and much more! I’ll still be practising the more difficult techniques on my own instruments for now, but I’ll soon be able to fix most minor problems on my students’ instruments, which was my overall goal.
It might have been a working holiday, but it was still great fun and it was great to come back having learnt how to do so many cool things.
Here’s some of the things I managed to fix, starting with an old flute with a nasty dent:
Before:
 
After:

And here’s a clarinet with a nasty crack in it:

And then after I’d worked my magic on it:

I can’t wait to put my newly learned skills to use and in fact, I already made a last minute repair to a leaky sax the day before someone’s music exam this week. Fun stuff!