ELKHART — Inside Ed Kwityn’s office at E.K. Blessing Co., saxophones were perched on top of their cases and several saxophone parts were sprawled across a nearby bookshelf.

Kwityn wheeled his chair from behind his desk, grabbed a couple prototype saxophone necks and chattered excitedly about the differences between them. He stood, picked up a caliper and blue plastic model, sat down and used the tools to demonstrate the variations and minute tolerances between each neck.

“Our instrument is just so different than anybody else’s,” the saxophone production manager said. “No one is making a saxophone like us.”

The enthusiasm is easy to understand. After years of discussion, design, fabrication and frustration, Blessing’s parent company, Verne Q. Powell Flutes Inc., is preparing to put its first alto saxophone into production.

Not only does this instrument extend the catalogue of offerings at Powell and Blessing beyond flutes and brass horns, it also will likely be the only saxophone built from start to finish in the United States. While other instruments are made on-shore, off-shore or both, all saxophones by major domestic manufacturers begin production overseas, then arrive either fully completed or needing finishing work.

“Either we’re foolish or we’re making a commitment and a statement about quality and community,” said Steven Wasser, owner and president of Powell. “I think we’ve got something that is potentially fantastic that the market wants.”

LITTLE THINGS

The Powell Silver Eagle, which features a silver bell, neck and tone holes, was designed to have a sound reminiscent of the long discontinued King Super 20, a saxophone popular with jazz legends like Charlie Parker and “Cannonball” Adderley. Coming from the Silver Eagle, the tone is dark, rich and more diffuse than sound of the French-made saxophones.

Powell is also making a Brass Eagle, which has a brass bell, neck and tone holes.

Mike Smith, professional saxophonist, was the lead designer on the Powell project. He worked with Wasser and Jim Weir, clarinet maker based in Toronto, to refine the dimensions of the horn so it produces the desired acoustics.

Other features of the Powell Silver Eagle that seem minor make substantial contributions to the sound.

For example, Smith underscored the importance of the saxophone neck by switching out the prototypes as he played a couple of riffs on the Powell. Altering the size of the openings at either end of the neck along with shifting the distance of the octave pip from the tip dramatically changed the color of the notes.

Also, Powell takes a different approach to the creation of the tone holes that the design team believes makes their saxophone more resonant, more responsive. Tone holes, which protrude from the body of the saxophone, are traditionally made by pulling up the metal directly from the body of the instrument. However, for the Silver Eagle, rings are crafted separately, then brazed, or hard-soldered at a temperature of 1,400 degrees, onto the horn.

Although the Powell saxophone borrows techniques and methods of production from Powell flutes, the instrument will be made at the Blessing plant on Paul Drive. Fabricating the body of the saxophone is similar to making a trumpet or trombone, and the skill set to build the horn is concentrated in Elkhart, so putting the saxes into production in Northern Indiana, and not at Powell’s facility in Boston, made sense, Wasser said.

APPLAUSE

Even before it’s on the market, the Powell Silver Eagle has been generating some buzz. It got a lot of attention during the National Association of Music Manufacturers 2012 show, and the instrument’s Facebook page has posted an engagement rate of 188.2 percent at mid-June, up from 11.2 percent in mid-May.

The horn is scheduled to be on the market by late 2012 but the company has already logged some pre-production sales. It is a model for professional musicians with a price tag between $8,000 and $10,000.

Wasser is not worried about sales. His first priority is not tallying receipts but rather making a top-quality instrument that is proprietary, distinctive and superior. Accomplish that and the customers will follow.

“If we make a great instrument,” he said, “we’ll eventually make money.”

Christian Wissmuller, an editor at Symphony Publishing, believes the “made in USA” label alone will attract buyers. Also, having the Powell name will bring customers since Powell flutes are held in high regard.

“I think people are going to want to try it if its sound lives up to its reputation,” Wissmuller said. “People will buy it.”

The improving market could give the Powell saxophone a boost. In 2011, the total retail sales of all of woodwinds rose 2.8 percent to $267.9 million, according to the NAMM and The Music Trades magazine.

CHANGE IN PLANS

From his office, Kwityn bounded into the production facility, where he pulled saxophone bodies in various states of production and placed them on a work bench. Smiling, he called the prototypes “toys.”

The industrial shelves behind that bench are filled will small odd-looking contraptions. About the size of a hand, these devices have metal platforms positioned on short peg legs with more metal blocks, discs and levered arms on top.

They are, in fact, some of the instrument-making tools that helped change Wasser’s mind about the saxophone.

Initially, the chief of Powell was not enamored with the idea of adding that woodwind to the company portfolio. Smith had been talking to him about recreating the King Super 20, but Wasser considered saxophones in general to be clunky, they did not have the grace and delicacy of flutes that come from the Powell facility near Boston.

Wasser’s first idea was to have the instruments partially made in Asia, then finished in Boston and branded under Powell’s Sonaré label. That plan changed when he bought E.K. Blessing, which provided a foundation for saxophone production, and when he was approached at the Musikmesse show in Frankfort, Germany, about buying the saxophone tools from the B&S music company.

Blessing and B&S tools provided the fundamental elements for building the horn from start to finish in the U.S. Additional help has come from other shops and manufacturers, mostly in Elkhart County, that are supplying the parts, dies and even the instrument cases.

“Everything we can do locally, we are,” Wasser said. “I regard (being able to source parts) as one of the advantages to buying a facility in Elkhart.”

The Powell design team emphasized theirs is not a B&S remake. Only the key-making tools from the other manufacturer are being used and that is just to create an ergonomic arrangement so the musician’s hands do not hurt while playing.

IT IS A POWELL

As the saxophone moved through the prototype stages, the quality kept getting better and better until eventually the conversation started about a name change. Some objected to spreading the Powell name to another woodwind but, Wasser said, those concerns disappeared once the caliber of the instrument became apparent.

“It’s made in Elkhart but it’s a Powell,” Wasser said.

Kwityn relocated from Boston to Elkhart especially to work on the Powell Silver Eagle and oversee production. He arrives at the Blessing plant at 7:30 a.m. and often stays until 8:30 p.m., milling, soldering, crafting the saxophone into a playable work of art.

A saxophone player himself, Kwityn praised Wasser and Powell Flutes for undertaking the project. In a year, he envisions a crew at Blessing will be dedicated to solely making the saxophone and the offerings will have expanded to include alto and tenor models.

“It’s a dream come true,” he said of his job. “Who else is going to do this? Seriously? No one else.”