They say if you find a job you love you'll never work a day in your life, and after 20 years of musical repairs - post retirement - Tom's not looking to stop any time soon.
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Almost 86, Tom Chapman is still working as a musical instrument repair man, almost booked to the hilt.
He can fix anything in the woodwind or brass families just as long as he can lift it.
It requires not just a mammoth knowledge base but also precision, with some finicky work requiring accuracy to the 100th of a millimeter.
The thing about it is, to repair something you have to know how to play it otherwise how will you know if it works or not?
- Tom Chapman
"The thing about it is, to repair something you have to know how to play it otherwise how will you know if it works or not?" he chuckled.
He says he retired from his 'real' job of teaching 20 years ago, but has kept this up.
Watch some snippets of Mr Chapman chatting about a few of his repair methods in the video below:
It all started when one of his students at school sent his saxaphone away to be repaired but it still didn't work when it was returned.
"I said, here let me take it home and have a look," Mr Chapman recalls.
"Then when I brought it back, he said it had never sounded better".
That was the first domino in what would become a great line of school instrument repair jobs. But why does he keep at it?
"I do it to help people. There is no one else in this area who can do what I do, so I will keep at it till I die," he says stoically.
"I'm on the pension so I don't charge probably what I could commercially, but I don't need the money, and I certainly don't need any more work."
But someone would have a tough if nigh on impossible time replacing him. His first job was in engineering, the second in an electrical company focusing on sound systems.
Throughout his life, he's played in bands, performed as a clarinet soloist at the Wollongong Conservatorium of Music, stood as first trombone, and played clarinet and saxaphone in a number of chamber music groups too. He plays a total of seven instruments.
His highly organised, well-stocked shed filled with musical parts and tools is the envy of any mechanically-minded man, often used as an example by their wives in proving there is such a thing as a tidy work space.
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While the thrill of a challenge presented by an "impossible" fix has always called to him, nothing can beat the helping someone out of a jam.
One of his 'love jobs' at the moment is piecing together a trumpet someone dug out of their backyard.
He repairs instruments from as far as Narrabri, Moree, Dubbo and beyond, "basically anywhere within a four hour drive radius."
For information on becoming an instrument repairer, get Mr Chapman's advice on 0413 974 839.
