Making your own vintage M.C. Gregory 4A 18 mouthpiece

I got my carcass or blank for this project several years ago, but I didn't get around to finishing this blog until Covid-19.  The project was to make a Rico "M.C. Gregory" brand mouthpiece just like our favorite player supposedly played during part of his or her career.  That's the one that demands the high prices.  It might play okay for us, but more importantly, it will impress some players when we tell them that we have one.

As I said in another blog, these particular blanks are hard to come by.  Rico apparently kept tight control of the molds and didn't seem to sell many blanks to third parties.  But the blanks are out there.  So are the molds.  The unrelated Gale molds recently sold at auction, but the Gregory molds have never been located (only the chamber plugs).

Vintage Rico Gregory blanks.

No tip and lay number.

No "Rico," "Master" or "Model A" designation.  These are actually the "Master" blank with the ebonite finished flush to the brass shank band.

No chamber number.

The chamber.  This one looks to be a 20 or large chamber.

The shank band and chamber.  The mold lines between the shank and the chamber don't appear to have been polished or even cleaned up.

The unmarked tenor Rico Gregory blanks that I've seen are probably from late in the production when Rico had switched from brass to aluminum for the shank band.  This could have been after Rico had Remle Musical Products, Inc. (Elmer Beechler) producing its mouthpieces.  Mr. Beechler was more familiar with injection molding and produced the Reloplex by Rico.  Below is an unmarked tenor Rico Gregory "Master" and a Reloplex.  The Gregory is vulcanized rubber and the Reloplex is injection molded plastic.

The Rico Gregory has a peashooter chamber reminiscent of the Selmer Airflow.  The Rico Reloplex has a chamber more like the Brilhart Tonalin from the Great Neck NY period (which is when Elmer Beechler had worked for Arnold Brilhart in New York prior to moving to California in 1947).  Production of the Reloplex began about 1950, which seems to be about when Rico phased out the Gregory.

Don't attempt to make a Rico Gregory from an old Gale mouthpiece.  They are not related.  The mistaken claim that the mouthpieces are from "the same company" was asserted years ago by a single person and, despite it's inaccuracy, the myth continues (using a Gale mold to allegedly create a Rico M.C. Gregory mouthpiece).  

The Rico alto blank that I will use has sort of a "preliminary" or maybe a "student" facing on it. The tip opening measures .064 inches.  That was the smallest opening available on the Gregory (a #3A) and about the same as a Selmer Goldentone student mouthpiece.  There was evidence of a tiny amount of tip work done in the chamber of the blank that I will be using.  Just enough to clean up the tip.  

One of my Rico blanks with a little chamber work, but the majority of the chamber still has the "frosted" unfinished look created by the chamber plug.

A vintage Rico Gregory 4A 18 from the website saxophone.org.  It also has a minimal amount of tip work with the chamber interior still showing the "frosted" look of an unpolished ebonite casting.

My blank looks like the perfect candidate to use for a new vintage original genuine M.C. Gregory 4A 20, just like this kid is playing.  

Or maybe he is playing a 5A 18.  Oh no, we don't really know!  Hopefully, somebody can tell me or, better yet, I could start a poll to find out which one I should make, i.e., which one is the "Holy Grail."  Or I can do the common modification of putting on a facing that works best for me (called re-facing) but make sure the embossing on the mouthpiece is the "famous" combination.  Turns out that the 5A facing is .066 inch, still a little too small for me.  Maybe even too small for Paul Desmond, but we will never know if he improved his Rico mouthpiece like I'm going to do.

As we learned in another blog, nobody really has any definite idea as to what the old Rico Gregory lay numbers were.  Mr. Eric Brand published some numbers in the late 1930's, but they are thin on detail and bit lumpy when graphed.  The lay numbers he provides for Rico mouthpieces (then the M.C. Gregory model) are not exactly what we would expect.  For instance, the difference between a vintage Rico 4A 16 and a 4A 18 is generally considered to be only a difference in the chamber size.  16 is small, 18 is medium, and 20 is a large chamber.  But Eric Brand's old numbers have a difference in both tip opening and lay numbers between the Rico 16 and 18 chambers for the alto mouthpiece.  Nobody knows what the old lay and tip numbers for a Rico 20 chamber might have been (or if it also differed).

Visit saxophone.org at the 1938 Selmer publication How to Reface Reed Instrument Mouthpieces (page 25) written by Eric Brand for more detail.  The final number in each column (the tip opening) is based on a tip gauge available in the old Selmer refacing kit (see page 10 of the publication) that is no longer available.  Mouthpiece tip openings are now commonly given in thousandths of an inch or millimeters.

I could just use the numbers that I used when making the new old vintage official Meyer Brothers alto piece what worked well for me.  I had to think about this a bit before creating a new old vintage official Rico "Master" alto facing curve.   Measuring the lay on my un-embossed Rico blank would not be much help.  Still, it was interesting to see how accurate the "take off" point was for the .0015" feeler gauge.  This measurement is commonly used to see if the lay leaves the table accurately.  

The .0015 feeler gauge slid between the mechanic's ruler and the mouthpiece (hidden by the ruler).

This is not good.  The right-hand side is about 23.5 mm (a Brand number of 47).  The left-hand side is way off.  Of course, both are really long for a .065" tip opening (which should be about 20.5 mm or a Brand number of 41).  

I played this blank and, on a scale of bad to good, it rates an okay.  It doesn't inspire the awe one would expect for a Rico Gregory blank, but it does play.  I tried my hardest reed, a NOS #3 Olivieri (a vintage reed for a vintage mouthpiece) and it still wasn't impressive.  Maybe if the mouthpiece had the Rico "Diamond" logo used on several models and a chamber stamp, especially something like 5A-18, it might convince some players that it has a cool West Coast sound.  To me, it plays surprisingly well considering the lay, but the notes don't pop out, especially the bell notes.

Based on what I am hearing and seeing, I can do no harm in altering the facing.  It looks like I will have to start with straightening out the table.  Once that was done, here are the numbers that I used.  If you are unfamiliar with what these numbers mean, check out this blog.  

41.5

35.5

29.9

24.9

20.3

14.6

8.1

4.5

That left me with a tip opening of .075 inch, not large by today's standards, but which is slightly larger than what was available on Rico's M.C. Gregory line of mouthpieces.  It also left me with a little material that needed to be removed in order to thin down the tip rail.  I decided to remove most of it and not accentuate much of a baffle, just like on the original Master by Gregory mouthpieces.  I also polished the inside of the chamber a little more as a result, but left the original frosted look further inside.

Since I have a bunch of these, I was able to finish them to different tip openings and different lays.  But the one above turned out the best for me so all of them will likely get the same treatment.  Nice smooth sound and easy articulation.  That's about all I ask for.  True, it would be worth $1,000 more if it had Rico's Gregory logo on it and the magic numbers for the chamber and tip opening.  But I'll just have to settle for one (actually a bunch) that play better.