Friday, April 29, 2011

Temporary Hiatus

So it's been a few days since my last post. Sorry for the wait but I've been ridiculously busy with school and planning a wedding.

But that is neither here nor there this is about trumpets!

So in my absence from blogging I have had the opportunity to work on some really nice horns and some really bad horns. I should have pics up before the end of the night. But I'll just give a brief description of what work was done:

First up is a Conn Vintage One Flugelhorn. The main crook of the bell from the casing to the bore extension was crushed after someone decided it needed stepping on. My boss Ann MacMillan did an amazing job getting the tube back into the right shape. I was responsible for cleaning/polishing. I did run into a slight problem that required the dis/re-assembling of the 3rd valve slide.

Second is a Kanstul rip off of Monet's Prana 3. It LOOKS like a great horn really heavy and has a beautiful finish, but unfortunately it has a small bore and is really really tight. There was nothing seriously wrong with this horn besides it's pinch-y sound.

Next is a horn I don't have photos of but I'll try and get some soon. It is a Schilke 3B and it was really trashed. The horn is a gigging horn so it didn't get a lot of down time. The horn was being eaten from the inside out from "red rot" aka de-zinctification. There were multiple cracks along the bell and nothing was working properly besides the fact that it played. After cleaning the horn of what we could and getting everything working, my boss came up with an en genius solution to the multiple bell crook cracks. Pictures will show how she has a normal brace style patch along the outside of the crook and along the side she beaded a piece of wire giving it an almost tuba like look.

Regular updates should be incoming from now on since school is winding down to an end.

Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Perfect Porting

So fyi: rant incoming.

So here is my beef: Bob Reeves valve alignments. Bob Reeves charges people "X" amount of money to take your horns valves and align them perfectly along the ports. The process is simple he has neoprene and hard plastic spacers made to a specific legnth. He then measures how off the porting is in your horn and cuts away the valve stem til the ports are within thousands of a millimeter of "perfect."

There is only one problem: while the verticle alignment might be perfect the horizontal alignment remains imperfect.

The facts are these: When a horn's valves are manufactured the valve guide is cut to a specific width which is less than the width of the corresponding slots in the casing. This isn't a flaw, it has to be this way because the piston would fail to work properly if the guide and slot were pefectly fit.

Morover the the space that is through the upper part of the piston is not flush for this same reason. A perfect fit would lead to a phenominal amount friction leading to sticking and terrible action.

This micro space can be exacerbated with poor production quality which is seen very often amongst the major brands. Therefor if you factor this in you ccome to the conclusion that your valves will hardly ever be perfect horizontally.

I challenge you! Open your second valve slide annd look in towards your third valve. You will definitely be able to see your casing.

Now think about this: knowing this is a very common occurrance do our horns ever seem off? Of course not! If they did we wouldn't be playing them!

So if it doesn't affect our sound or playing at all why would we pay money to fix a problem that isn't really there? We shouldn't. What comes standard from the factory is not only adequate but really the only sensible option.

So there, that is my beef with valve alignments. 

Keeping Busy

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.

Thursday, April 7, 2011

1 is rare, 2 is just impossible

So work today was super tiring, not really sure why but for some reason I just kept feeling exhausted.

Anyways enough about me, onto the horns I got a chance to work with today! :)

It was a pretty normal day in the shop at UNT today. I had two trumpet cleans on the docket and one as a polish so nothing super fancy. That was until I got a chance to look at one of the horns. I pulled it out of the case and it was a raw brass Bach Strad with a 37 bell from Elkhart, IN. This horn was gorgeous to say the least. Everything was in perfect condition, the brass was dirty but had that wonderful tarnish look to it; I just drooled over it for a while. Anyways while it was soaking in our tub I got a chance to look up the serial number: it was from 1976! Making it the perfect "vintage" Elkhart Strad.

Now a little background: I absolutely love vintage Bach's. There is something about them that few horn makers can get right nowadays. The horns have a smooth velvety sound with great articulation. All of the hardware is seamlessly flawless and the solder joints actually look like they were done by a professional. Unlike the crap that Bach is turning out now, back in the 70s Bach built a solid beast of a horn.

So I start my second clean in a very cheery mood and notice that the horn is a 1990s Bach Strad with a 37 bell. I chuckled honestly, it was like God was giving me a chance to see the difference time can make. This horn was it terrible shape so I had to actually put some effort into it. After putting it through our cleaning room and polishing it up all nice and shiny-like I began to compare the horns to see how much Bach has changed their "most popular" horn.

To start off I noticed that the 70s Bach had a 1 piece hand-hammered bell whereas the 90s Bach had a 1 piece pressure molded bell (no seam). And right off the bat I can tell you that this is a huge difference. Whereas pressure forming is more cost effective and way faster having a seamed bell that has been hammered and shaped gives the horn a more mello sound. The metal is put under a lot of stress while being formed and is thinner than being pressurized. This would add a nice sparkle to the horn.

Second up the valve cluster on the 70s horn was part nickle silver and the 90s was solid brass. This is simply put: Nickle is denser than Brass therefor the nickle silver with resonate at a lower frequency giving it a darker tone.

Next up would be general construction. The 70s horn was very clean on the inside. There was no excess solder or unaligned ports. It was "perfect". Where as it's younger brother had excess solder in every port. Some of the slides weren't parallel to themselves and I had to port all of the valves.

This was concerning in that while the newer horns are less likely to be in terrible shape down the road the craftsmanship is just sub par. Bach has a huge reputation that was begun with these 1907s horns and frankly the horns of today just don't cut it. Now I know that just because one horn was like this doesn't mean that they all are, but this shoddy work is a pattern I have noticed on many of the Bach's that float around this school.

"Always be what you can be, not what you are." Is a quote from Dr. Brian Bowman that I really enjoy because I think it really applies to this line of work. There is always room for improvement and our best is only achieved when we are in the presence of the Creator.

Anyway that is a different topic that I will talk about tomorrow. Back to the present. So overall my day was going great (besides the being tired thing.) I got some great pics of a very rare horn that played great and was just honestly the best horn I have seen in a very long time. The icing on the cake though was when the owner of the horn came in we started gabbing about how he got it and just traded some vintage horn stories. He left and said that he was glad to get this back cause he was getting tired of playing his backup horn: a 1930s Mount Vernon Bach Strad!!!
I about flipped when he pulled it from the case. The story about how he got it was hilarious. His dad traded a cornet for it in high school and didn't know what he had until he took it to a shop 20 years later!

Anyway that was just a great little anecdote about a great day in the shop. Pics of the 70s horn will be up soon. Stay tuned for some weekend edition.

Wednesday, April 6, 2011

Current Projects

Currently listening to: Hummel Trumpet Concerto - Jessica Wood

So I've uploaded a lot of new photos of both personal and project horns.

The last project I finished was a particularily interesting one. I somehow got ahold of a very old Bach Mercury Model. The horn was very close to junk: there were many tears and punctures in the brass; the bell was detached and crinkled; none of the slides worked and it was missing many components not to mention all of the un-soldered joints.

I had a monumental but fantastic time resotring this 86 year old horn. It was very theraputic and really inspiring to see this horn come back to life.

First I had to reshape the bell and patch its crook in 2 different spots. Using a dent machine and with lots of careful practice on other horns, this bronze bell started to look like it was intended.

Next was the many numerous slides and pipes that had to be resoldered and have dents removed. After finishing dents I moved on to putting an amado water key on the tuning slide where the original water went missing. Following this I had the difficult task of refitting the leadpipe to the horn and retro fitting a brace to keep the leadpipe in place.

Finally the horn's bell had to be fitted back onto the horn with the completed valve block. This proved harder than imagined because the braces had been crushed and no longer fit where they were supposed to so with this problem I devised an interesting solution.

I managed to take the braces apart and refit them to the correct size. This painstaking process allowed me to finally put the horn back together in a whole state for the first time.

After all of this I had to clean, polish, and align the valves. This process didn't take long and soon enough the horn was in great shape. The horn has a very tight sound and has an amazing articulation response.

Sorry for the ridiculously long post but I wanted to be as detailed as possible. Other project posts will be spread out and shorter.

Tuesday, April 5, 2011

Getting Back in the Swing of Things

Currently listening to: Blink 182 - Anthem

So I have decided to get back into in blogging and I have sort of redesigned this blog to be more about my ventures into instrument repair and custom trumpet work and design. I hope to use this as a tool to keep others involved in my projects and ideas. I have a lot of pictures up on my blog of present and past projects that I think are a staple to my work.

It is really my hope and dream to become a brass instrument manufacturer and some of my current projects and research have been great steps towards this dream. If you are looking for some custom trumpet work and you are in the DFW area please contact me and we can work something out. Also ask me any questions you might have; this will help me not only better understand what I'm doing but also let you know better what I actually do.

Hopefully I will update this regularly and hopefully you see something you like.

Enjoy

DSR