Keystone Music and Repair

Keystone Music and Repair Offering comprehensive woodwind and brass repairs in Pottstown, Pennsylvania. Please call or email for an appointment. He is an active oboe/english horn player.

Keystone Music Repair is an independent brass and woodwind repair shop located in Pottstown PA (North Coventry Township), convenient to Chester, Montgomery, and Berks Counties. As a repair-only shop, we are able to focus on turning out the highest quality work, but can also offer recommendations for where to purchase new/used instruments and accessories. Please call or email for an appointment.

-Performing all manner of repairs to all brass and woodwind instruments, with specialized skills in double reeds
-Modifications and custom parts manufacture available
-Free estimates on all work, excellent customer communication, and straightforward answers to all your instrument-related questions

John Kirkner is a professional instrument repair technician who studied at Minnesota State College-Southeast Technical in Red Wing, MN.

Here's a cute lil' tunable leadpipe I made for that cute lil' Eb cornet that tried to kill me a few weeks ago. The origi...
03/18/2026

Here's a cute lil' tunable leadpipe I made for that cute lil' Eb cornet that tried to kill me a few weeks ago. The original removable leadpipe went missing in ages past. The owner provided pics of an original leadpipe from a similar instrument, and from that I was able to get some rough dimensions. I ordered some appropriately sized telescoping tube, mocked something up to test the intonation, then put it all together. The tuning mechanism uses some handmade posts along with the threaded rod and nut from a Bach trumpet 3rd slide stop rod.
The whole cornet is finished now (2nd pic), after I had to rebuild most of the solder joints and manufacture some new tubes and ferrules to replace originals that had split. It also got a good thorough cleaning, then another cleaning after all of that soldering. Now that it doesn't leak like a sieve and has the correct length of tubing between the mouthpiece and bell, it plays shockingly well.

Here's a fun one for New Year's Eve.M has been very into the American Girls books, and has several of the dolls, many in...
01/01/2026

Here's a fun one for New Year's Eve.
M has been very into the American Girls books, and has several of the dolls, many inherited from her mom. But lately she's been into Kit, whom she didn't have in doll form. Fortunately, Santa found a gently loved Kit doll who was ready for a new home, but she was missing a couple of buttons from her sweater. Santa sent her to us ahead of time for a glow-up, but we couldn't order new buttons in time for Christmas. Turns out Allied Supply saxophone pearls are the right thickness and color to make replacements, they just needed a little customization.
After I turned them to the right diameter, I used a ball end mill to make the concave face, polished them smooth, then drilled the thread holes in the mill. Looking pretty great, Kit!
Incidentally, if I'd charged my regular labor and parts rates for this work, these buttons would probably be the most expensive accessory any member of our household has on any piece of clothing.
Happy New Year, everyone.

Working on a one-handed saxophone, and the most harrowing part of these projects is having to braze a second post ball o...
12/28/2025

Working on a one-handed saxophone, and the most harrowing part of these projects is having to braze a second post ball onto this post. The heat required to braze the ball is easily enough to release the solder that holds the post onto the body of the instrument. I got around that by working quickly (which minimizes the amount of heat that can transfer through the post to the body) and by stuffing a wet cloth into the body right under the post. The water in the cloth (in this case, a sock) can absorb a lot of heat, which keeps the body (and the solder joint) below the temperature at which the solder would flow.

I place a scrap piece of steel rod through the post to keep it aligned (just in case the joint were to come loose) and align the post ball with a piece of brass rod that's threaded on both ends. This picture shows how it looks after a lot of clean up and lacquering.

Happy Christmas, everyone.I see that this is my fourth post in 2025. Probably indicative of a pretty poor social media s...
12/26/2025

Happy Christmas, everyone.
I see that this is my fourth post in 2025. Probably indicative of a pretty poor social media strategy for my business, but at least the bar is set low for 2026. I may squeeze in another post or two over the next week, I've had a few fun projects lately.
I always spend Christmas Eve doing some cleaning and organizing in the shop, then take off for the week between so I can start the new year fresh. Hope you get to spend some time with people you love in this last week of the year.

Address

South Keim Street
Pottstown, PA
19465

Telephone

+14849859559

Website

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Keystone Music and Repair posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Contact The Business

Send a message to Keystone Music and Repair:

Shortcuts

Share

Category