Project Trombone

 This page is dedicated to the repair of the Olds Ambassador Trombone. There was not a lot of work to be done to this project, just a few dents in the bell and gooseneck, with some minor slide work.

To begin, I removed the cork barrel material with a Ferree’s cork barrel material remover. I then chem. flushed the entire horn in both simple green and phosphoric acid. I used a brass brush and cheesecloth with both denatured alcohol and valve oil to swab out the inner and outer tubes on the handslide. 

 I polished the entire bell section with flitz in order to see the various dents that were happening. I removed the dents from the bell using a variety of stem mandrels and burnishers. To remove the dents from the gooseneck, I used a small nosepicker from one end and rebounded them out.

 Before removing dents from the handslide, I checked and adjusted the alignment by sighting it perpendicular to an open light source, then scooped the minor bends out by hand. The dents were removed from the outer slide using a series of hammers on a tight fitting trombone handslide mandrel.

 Once all of the dents were out, I polished the inside of the outer tube with motor oil and Tripoli buffing compound on a lathe with an undersized trombone mandrel. I then buffed the stockings of the inner slide using white buffing compound. After they were swabbed out again, the handslides moved as well as an old handslide would.

 To finish off the trombone, I had to change the position of the water key. The bridge was removed and aligned in proper position using the key with a cork installed. The bridge was then soldered back in place and the area was buffed.  After this, the case was cleaned and the horn was polished to go back to the customer. If you have any questions, leave me a comment or email me at airbandrepair@gmail.com