Well my life seems to have been going a mile a minute. So much has been going on especially this week with the end of the semester looming and wedding plans consuming a lot of our free time, but luckily God has blessed us with an amazing community of believers who have been encouraging us. However the one thing that is very stressful is knowing how much this wedding will cost. But I guess that means I just get to work more, right?
Yesterday was a great day for horns I was able to stretch out and cover many different problems at the same time. Yesterday's work docket looked something like this: Yamaha 8310Z Chem. clean, Couesnon Piccolo valve alignment, Chinese C Trumpet valve work, and an ancient Getzen Capri Trumpet clean and polish.
Interestingly enough the chem clean was pretty easy seeing as Yamaha makes a very simple horn. The only problem I had to deal with was valve porting. The last repair tech/factory (not quite sure) didn't have the right felts in the top caps so I had to hunt for them and even then I had flatten them out even more. After some trial and error the problem was for the most part fixed. I say this because I am a firm believer that you can never truly port a valve "perfectly". But I will explain that later today during my studio class.
The Couesnon Pic and Chinese C (Yamaha clone) were having some major valve issues which involved slow action and sticking. I took the valves apart and ran them through our UltraSonic cleaner for a good 5 minutes. This vibrated free and loose debris (there was a ton) and after a quick dip in some acid the valves were looking great. I dry brushed out the casings and then did a trade secret to oil them up and soon enough they felt like the pistons on my Olds.
I have some pictures of the Couesnon and for such an older horn it was in surprisingly great condition. For those who don't know about Couesnon here is a link: http://www.dallasmusic.org/gearhead/Couesnon%3F.html%20
Gives a great history of the amazing lineage of this premier brass maker.
As for the Chinese C, lets just say that the company who is producing those horns is going to be in some trouble if another company finds out what is printed on the bell.
Keep a look out for my next post sometime later today, as well as news about my latest restoration horn which happens to also be a Couesnon. Pics of the piccolo should be up so take a look.
No comments:
Post a Comment