Week Two - August 29 - September 2

During this second week, we continued to make and modify small hand tools. Our first lathe project consisted of modifying two Delrin Hammer heads so that the flat side had a slight bevel to minimize the point of contact when doing dent work.

Delrin Hammer Heads

This week also provided our first experiences with large-scale buffing. We were each given a trombone bell to prepare and buff using Yellow Rouge. This same trombone bell was used throughout this week as we started into dent removal on the bell flare.

As we are entering into doing physical work on brass, we began exploring Chem Flushing. On this trumpet bell, I performed a 10-minute detergent soak followed by a 3-minute pickle in Sulfamic acid, removing any lime and scale from it.

As a personal project, I brought with me a Lignatone student trumpet. This trumpet comes from Czechoslovakia, and is proving to have some of the oddest setups I have seen on a trumpet. As we progress, I have been performing similar maintenance on this trumpet, changing water key parts and porting the pistons. This trumpet needs a lot of work to bring it back to play condition.