The final week of Brass has come and gone, and our project trumpets are finally done. This week has been all about assembly and final playability. I began this week by attaching my new mouthpiece. The casing to mouthpipe brace was fit and installed first, followed by the two S braces connecting the mouthpipe to the bell. It was important to ensure that the fit did not put any stress on the mouthpipe as it would effect tone production.
While installing the mouthpipe, I found a crack in the main tuning slide crook. It was small, but had to be patched.
Next, I turned my attention to the damaged casing threads. We were not to cover casing repair on piston brass until after Christmas, but because it is one of the only things I had left to do, I skipped ahead in the work a bit. Using dent balls, I brought the casings back to round. While this fixed all of the issues with the 2nd and 1st casings, the 3rd was still too badly damaged. Using a Ferree's Thread Burnisher, I managed to bring the threads almost completely back to shape. To finish it up, I used an Allied Thread Chaser to cut away any excess material that was slowing the threading down. This brought it back to perfect.
As a quick aside, there was a mouthpiece in the case when I received the trumpet that was slightly damaged on the rim and shank. In under 10 minutes, I restored the roundness to the shank, burnished the damage out of the rim, and polished the mouthpiece to a shiny silver. It's the little things that customers notice.
I prepped the horn for lacquering. This meant buffing any areas where I was soldering. I buffed with a white cut-buff compound that is relatively low on the shinyness scale and won't leave a mirror finish. The reason I used this was to match the rest of the trumpet's finish. The horn was degreased with orange cleaners and lacquered.
As my lacquer was drying, I was given a very odd assignment. A woman in the bookstore brought in an antique pendent and asked if we could clean it up for her. So, I took the pendent and chem flushed it, first with detergent, then through the ultra sonic machine (which was super cool), and finally with silver dip. While this restored it quite a bit, it still needed a little work. So I polished it with silver polish and ran it through the ultra sonic once more. This was my finished product.
After finishing the polish, we brought the pendant to Todd Hawkinson in our jewelry repair department. Surprisingly, he buffed it with the same compounds that we use, just on a smaller scale. He gave us a quick tour of his department and you would be amazed at how similar the two programs are. So after swapping some quick trade secrets, he brought the pendant back to brilliant. Check out the Jewelry Repair Programs here.
Meanwhile, back in brass land, my lacquer is now dry and assembly has begun. Each slide was tested and any that were sluggish were re-examined and lapped as needed. The water keys were reinstalled and re-corked with neoprene pads and Yamaha springs. The pistons were ported and tested, in which I found the third casing was slightly out of round on the bottom end. A quick burnish with a mandrel and a few hammer hits brought it back to running smooth. Everything was greased, oiled and wiped, the case was vacuumed and the horn was play tested. Everything passed and the invoice was written up. Final cost - $250 at tech school prices. In reality, it would be a bit more. Because this is an instructional horn, we actually zeroed the price out and it will be returned to our affiliate at no cost.
Soon I will post a page dedicated to this trumpet, outlining the process a little more in depth and the steps I took as they came. If you want any more information or want to share opinions and insight, feel free to leave comments or email me at airbandrepair@gmail.com. Cheers.
Next, I turned my attention to the damaged casing threads. We were not to cover casing repair on piston brass until after Christmas, but because it is one of the only things I had left to do, I skipped ahead in the work a bit. Using dent balls, I brought the casings back to round. While this fixed all of the issues with the 2nd and 1st casings, the 3rd was still too badly damaged. Using a Ferree's Thread Burnisher, I managed to bring the threads almost completely back to shape. To finish it up, I used an Allied Thread Chaser to cut away any excess material that was slowing the threading down. This brought it back to perfect.
As a quick aside, there was a mouthpiece in the case when I received the trumpet that was slightly damaged on the rim and shank. In under 10 minutes, I restored the roundness to the shank, burnished the damage out of the rim, and polished the mouthpiece to a shiny silver. It's the little things that customers notice.
As my lacquer was drying, I was given a very odd assignment. A woman in the bookstore brought in an antique pendent and asked if we could clean it up for her. So, I took the pendent and chem flushed it, first with detergent, then through the ultra sonic machine (which was super cool), and finally with silver dip. While this restored it quite a bit, it still needed a little work. So I polished it with silver polish and ran it through the ultra sonic once more. This was my finished product.
After finishing the polish, we brought the pendant to Todd Hawkinson in our jewelry repair department. Surprisingly, he buffed it with the same compounds that we use, just on a smaller scale. He gave us a quick tour of his department and you would be amazed at how similar the two programs are. So after swapping some quick trade secrets, he brought the pendant back to brilliant. Check out the Jewelry Repair Programs here.
Meanwhile, back in brass land, my lacquer is now dry and assembly has begun. Each slide was tested and any that were sluggish were re-examined and lapped as needed. The water keys were reinstalled and re-corked with neoprene pads and Yamaha springs. The pistons were ported and tested, in which I found the third casing was slightly out of round on the bottom end. A quick burnish with a mandrel and a few hammer hits brought it back to running smooth. Everything was greased, oiled and wiped, the case was vacuumed and the horn was play tested. Everything passed and the invoice was written up. Final cost - $250 at tech school prices. In reality, it would be a bit more. Because this is an instructional horn, we actually zeroed the price out and it will be returned to our affiliate at no cost.
Soon I will post a page dedicated to this trumpet, outlining the process a little more in depth and the steps I took as they came. If you want any more information or want to share opinions and insight, feel free to leave comments or email me at airbandrepair@gmail.com. Cheers.
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