The joy of sax
But with a dream of increasing the number of players, Piyapat Thanyakij, the president of Vibrato Co, has spent 20 million baht to design the instruments under the theme of "Sax for All".
His idea, which he came up with six years ago, was that since the material is the obstacle, use plastic instead _ while a brass saxophone weighs 2.8 kilogrammes, a plastic one is only 800 grammes.
"We did nothing short of revolutionise a production process that has existed for 165 years. Saxophones had never been made by mould injection before," said Mr Piyapat.
With brass saxophones, 60-70% of the cost is from skilled labour, so Mr Piyapat had to find a new cost-efficient production method to reduce that figure to 30-40%.
"Welders who make 300,000-baht saxophones have been welding for as many as 50 years, while 30,000-baht instruments might be made by welders with only three years' experience," he said.
Polycarbonate is used, with the plastic pellets bought from Bayer after joint development with that company.