At the beginning of this week, we started working on a new lathe project. We created a flute push rod for setting the flute head corks. This included scribing a coloured line exactly 17mm from the end of a 12" plastic dowel. On the other end of this dowel, we drilled a hole. This tool will be used towards the end of next semester.
Later this week, we began looking deeper into the problems of our project trumpets. We began to chemically flush the instrument, removing any organics and scale from the interior. After this, I proceeded to align the bell and bow so that I could begin removing dents.
One of the issues that I came across was that the casing-to-mouthpipe brace was torn. Usually this means replacing it with a different brace that is stronger and of a different brand. Instead, I manufactured a brace from scratch that matched the original braces on the trumpet. This involved cutting flanges from sheet brass, shaping the spanner by hand on a lathe, annealing the flanges so they could be shaped, and silver soldering the unit together. It was around this time that I discovered my camera was on landscape view. I apologize for all of my previously blurry pictures, but hopefully they will be better from here on out.
Towards the end of this week, I began removing dents from the project trumpet, beginning with knuckle dents. They were surprisingly easy to remove compared to the other dents I have had to deal with. The number of dents in this trumpet is vast, so I expect this process will not be over soon.
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