For those of us with Keilwerth Series III Toneking, The New King, or anyone one of their sundry of stencils, chances are very high if you haven’t yet had to deal with damage to the original Lucite angelwing, you will at some point in the future. At the time of writing, OEM metal replacement angelwing guards are available through your local Keilwerth/Buffet dealer. (In theory at least. I don’t know how easy, or not, it is for your local dealer to get an answer from your local JK rep.) 😉 

Original metal replacement angelwing key guards notwithstanding, over the years I have seen quite a few interesting aftermarket, or homemade solutions to the broken Lucite. Below I offer up some of the more interesting ones I’ve seen in my travels through the Internet in the last 5 or so years.

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Note: I will be updating this article as I find more interesting—and perhaps unusual—replacements for the original Lucite angelwing that came standard on the Toneking and The New King saxophones that the Julius Keilwerth company produced in their Nauheim factory.

Metal

Plexiglass

Wood

Pads

Your Example?

Metal

Metal Eyebrow Replacements

These replacement guards remind me of those we saw on Hohner Presidents, G.H. Huller, Hammerschmidt, WERO, the extremely rare Keilwerth King Imperial, and of course the early Zephyrs. 

The shop that had the horn described it like this:

The original Tonekings have a plastic key protector. The so-called angel wing. In the 50s when plastic products were new and fashionable, it was “hip” to provide an instrument with a plastic key protector. But they become brittle over time and are then very vulnerable and in the course of time pieces break off. This one is provided with a modern alternative.

I don’t know if I would call this version “modern”, but it certainly works. Unfortunately it looks like they didn’t mount the low C guard using the original angelwing post locations. This will make it hard to use an OEM angelwing if the new owner were to want one. 

In other examples below, you’ll see how some have opted to keep the location of the replacement angelwing original, so that an OEM wing can be added at a later time—should they be able to find one.

Fancy Metal

This angelwing is interesting in its design. Although flat, it kept the original feathering at both ends of the wing we saw on both the replacement metal, as well as the original Lucite guard.

Plain Metal – Shiny 

Unlike the flat, fancy metal guard someone made for the alto above, this shiny piece of sheet metal was curved on the top end like the original guards are. Not sure if it looks as close in colour to the brass of the alto as it does in the photos, but this not a bad looking homemade replacement guard at all.

Plain Metal – Dull

Here again we have a flat piece of sheet metal, but the creator of it tried to keep to the original Keilwerth angelwing shape as much as possible—notwithstanding the feathering at the ends.

Patterned Metal

Of all the metal replacement angelwings, this is perhaps the most interesting. The designer kept to the original shape; kept the feathering on both ends; and bent it so it would contour with the shape of the sax. Combined with the circular swirl pattern on the guard itself, all in all, this is this is a lovely piece of artwork. 

Frankenguards 

This Frankenstein of a creation used the posts of the original angelwing. I will just let the owner tell the story:

The original “Angelwing” keyguard on my Keilwerth alto (s/n 286xx) was finally replaced with a lower key-guard (with pearl) off of a Conn Shooting Stars alto and a large key-guard from an Alpine alto. The original posts were not moved so if someone starts making the metal or plastic Angelwing again, the replacement will be easy to install.

Source: saxontheweb.net

Plexiglass

Flat Plexiglass #1

This flat piece of plexiglass with the feathering on the bow end, was made to keep the shape and roughly size of the original Lucite guard that came on this 1957 Toneking. This is in fact my horn, and shortly after I had this horn overhauled in 2012, I tracked down the OEM replacement metal guards through the now-closed shop that had belonged to the late Gerhard Keilwerth. 

Fortunately when this homemade replacement guard was created, the existing posts were used, so the metal replacement wing was relatively easy for my tech to attach. 

Flat Plexiglass #2

This plexiglass guard is similar to one above that the previous owner made when he owned the that Toneking tenor. The description from the seller made me laugh though. I have no idea who Great lake Winds are, but they sure didn’t do their homework:

…. The serial number is 24,xxx. I believe it dates to the mid-1950’s. It features rolled tone holes and clear plastic key guards (although I’m not sure whether or not the main one is original). [emphasis added]   

Flat Plexiglass #3 – broken

Like the previous 2 plexiglass replacement angelwing guards, this too is flat, but quite frankly, it is the ugliest of the 3. Sadly, it is also broken, which leads me to wonder what kinds of conditions this poor Keilwerth tenor has been exposed to, to go through not one, but at least two, Lucite/plexiglass angelwings.

Two-piece Plexiglass

This The New King alto is not sporting a one-piece, but rather two individual pieces that make up its angelwing. Yet again we see a seller making claims about the angelwing with zero research:

…As you can see from the photos it’s in excellent condition considering the age. The plastic key guard Angel Wings are in perfect condition and are original, [emphasis added] no cracks….

Silliness about the angelwing aside, I am curious why the person who came up with this design spilt the guard into two pieces, leaving the low C# uncovered. They did keep the feathering on both ends, and it appears that they used the original angelwing’s posts. Again, this is good if an owner down the road is able to source an OEM wing from JK.

Plexiglass Reproduction 

The Sax on the Web forum has a number of threads that discuss replacement angelwing key guards for the Toneking and The New King Series III saxophones. There are links, and links within links in the search results I provided here. It might also be worth refreshing the search results, since I am not 100% sure the results will be live—depending on when it is you read this article, and how many new threads and replies may have been added since I first searched for the term: angelwing.

The 2 particular replacement wings shown above in purple and clear, are the creation of a man who works as a machinist for a plastics company. Apparently he had made some wings in the past, and still had a couple on hand when Pat Miller reached out to him.

This is in part what Pat wrote about these professionally-made replacement angelwings:

….we have reached a deal wherein he has sent me the two wings he had on hand – one in clear perspex and the other in purple. I get the impression that he made them years ago and has not continued this project….

In these photos you see the original, the clear and the purple, just “tacked” in place with a couple of screws.

In the last photo he used another member’s advice on how to attach the wings to prevent them from possibly cracking.

Frankenplexi

Much like the metal Frankenguards above, this Frankenplexi has transplanted guards. However, not just any ugly-ass student horn’s guards. Instead this Toneking tenor received a transplanted, Grafton (alto) low C key guard.

Along with the acrylic Grafton guard, the remainder of the original, broken Lucite angelwing has been shaped slightly. And that’s all I’m going to say about that, since sometimes less is more.

Wood

Wooden Replica Angelwing

Of all the replacement angelwings I have come across in my years of researching and looking at literally thousands of Keilwerth saxophones, this replica oak guard is not only the most unique, but certainly the most beautiful. If you compare its shape to the original JK patent, as well as the original Lucite guard provided with the horn (picture 4), you can see this is not merely a replacement, it truly is a replica. 

The original auction was in Polish, and Google translate provided us with the following English version:

… It comes factory-equipped with an acrylic flap cover, called “angel wing”.

The sound is very wide and dark.

In my copy, the key cover was modeled on the original oak one by an artist, which makes this instrument very unique and unusual…

Makes sense this was artist-made. It looks truly amazing.

I do have to wonder though, if this piece of oak changes the resonance of the horn at all. Does it dampen the bell tones? I wonder because both the Lucite and OEM replacement metal wings are very light in weight. I guess it all comes down to the weight of the oak piece. 

From a pure esthetic perspective though, it is very pretty, and may be inspirational for anyone looking for ideas of how to replace their broken, damaged, or missing angelwing.

Pads

Saxophone Pads

This is without a doubt, the simplest, strangest, and arguably the least effective replacement for the Keilwerth angelwing I have come across in nearly 20 years of saxophone research. And I’ll just leave it at that.

Do you have an aftermarket angelwing on your Series III Keilwerth?

This is obviously just a small sampling of what’s out there. If you have photos of a replacement guard on a horn that you would like to share, please get in touch with me. I plan to update this article as I come across more interesting replacement anglwings.

Also, if you know of anyone who makes replacement wings, please comment below, or use the email I linked to above. I would really like Series III owners to have access to some makers of these wings to keep their horns looking great for years to come. Thank you!