I need to play my (tenor) saxophone next week at church. It's been over a year since I played it, so I figured I should clean it. I did the mouthpiece, then got to the neck. I couldn't find my pull-cloth for it, so I thought 'what the hell, I'll put the brush through it'.

BIG MISTAKE.

Luckily, I stopped pulling the brush through in time to realise this probably wasn't a good idea... Unfortuneatly, I then took the piece through to my dad to get him to help me to pull the cloth back out. He wondered how I got it stuck there in the first place, so I mimed how the cloth works in the body of the sax. He then pulled the damn cloth even further into the neck, so it got well and truly stuck!

Then my mum came through, and together we tried to grease the neck up and pull the brush through. We pulled it right into the thin edge of the neck- quite an achievement. But then I decided it was a lost cause, I'd have to take the neck back up to Edinburgh and get a professional to remove the brush. I went out with my friend, having calmed down quite a lot, as I was crying hysterical tears at my own stupidity, and my dad's carelessness. When I got back, I discovered my mum had spent the last few hours trying to dislodge the brush. The brush is still stuck in there, except now the metal wire and string attached to the brush have came off and there is NO way of pushing it back through.

I know it's going to cost me a bomb to fix this, but can anyone think of ANY was of fixing this? I googled, and forums said quite a few people had done this, but they'd managed to force it back out. If it weren't for my parents making things worse, I probably would have been able to do this! I'm worried about damaging the neck, as the octave key has broken before (someone slammed a door into it- not my fault that time!). I know I'll probably have to get it repaired, but if anyone has any ideas for me, I'll be pleased to hear them!

C.

I also have a massive blister on my finger from pulling on the string so hard. This hasn't been a good day.