Musical Instrument Restoration.
I have modified every horn I play
to some extent. I am going to tell you what I did, and what I
learned.
J.W. Pepper Cornet:
This was my first modified horn, and I love it. It was made in about 1905, which places it at about 103 years old! When I first got it, it did not play hardly at all. It was completely black with tarnish, had stuck valves and slides, missing parts, cracked tubing, etc. The first thing I did was remove the tarnish, I didthis with pencil erasers, and lots of household chemicals. Now the horn was gray instead of black. I found sent the horn away to be fixed, and it was playable when it came back but sounded like a rabbit in distress (not good). Some of the replaced parts did not match. I found a bottle of Turtle Wax Chrome Polish in our bathroom closet, and that shined it up pretty nice. I eventually got better polish, and even formulated my own. I found several pin holes in the tubing, which I patched with clear fingernail polish, it works well for a temporary fix. I then slowly and methodically started taking out the dents in the bell, by bending it roughly in place, and smoothing them out with a wooden
roller
made for smoothing photography prints. I then learned how to
solder properly, by heating the
part and then touching the solder to
it. I joined bent up and by now cut off mouthpiece receiver to
the leadpipe, this sealed out a lot of air, a
nd made it much more
playable, it was easier to hit a note, and hold onto it. I then
learned to electroplate, and spot
plated the horn, although this has all worn off at the time
you are reading this, I am
going to re-plate it when I get some time. The last thing I did
was anneal
the bell. When brass is bent of worked in any way, it gets
harder, by heating the bell
slowly and evenly with a propane torch, and then cooling it slowly, we
relieve the
stresses set up in the molecules, and the metal becomes soft again.
this allows
for a more efficient transfer of vibrations, which makes it sound
better, the to
ne
is richer.
J.W. York Cornet:
This horn was made in 1913, and that makes it about 95 years old. I cleaned it up when I got it, but it was missing pieces, so I could not play it, I sent it away to get it fixed (by different people) and I was pleased when it came back. I didn't do much else to it except maintain it, it is my primary horn now, I play it everywhere I go. I did learn that If one uses horn and rotor oil on the slides it works much better than slide grease. I also modified the mouthpiece a little.
King Student Model Trumpet:
This was my first horn, I do not know how old it is, and I do not really care. After getting my J.W. York, this horn became my primary guinea pig. The first Thing I did was trip off all the lacquer whit metal polish, it took forever. Then I gave it a good polishing, and it was super shiny. I then began to experiment with copper plating on it, just to give it a unique appearance. The copper is still there, but it doesn't look very nice, I may finish plating it someday, if I can borrow it long enough from the kid I sold it to. I also annealed the bell, and attempted to electroplate the valves. The annealing helped, but the electroplating did not, my solution was not good enough at the time. I also perfected my soldering technique on this horn. I will not be able to get more pictures of it, so for now this one will do. I also discovered that one can modify a mouthpiece and make the horn sound radically different, more on that below.
Fluglehorn:
This is a cheapo fluglehorn, but it plays okay. I didn't do much to it except modify the mouthpiece a little.
Piccolo Trumpet:
This is by far the most modified horn I
own. It is a junker Piccolo Trumpet made in China. The
first thing I did when I bought it was I
stripped the lacquer, I did this by boiling the entire horn in a
water/baking soda mi
x.
This was much faster than using metal polish. The next thing I
did was
completely
reshape the bell. It had a very abrupt flare, and it
sounded terrible.
I took every
had object I could get my hands on and used to to shove in there and
stretch out
the
metal. I opened up the bore some, and now the flare was less
abrupt.
This
significantly improved the sound. After playing ti for a little
while I decided
the
mouthpiece was junk, I had a lot of spare cornet mouthpieces laying
around, but
none of them gave me
the tone I was looking for, so I greatly modded th
e mouthpiece. I
also figured out that it did not play in tune at all. so I cut all the
slides down a little bit
and that helped. I also cut down the main tuning slide, so that I
could put it into a real
key. The last major thing I did was carve out the mouthpiece
receiver so that it was
a cone, not a cylinder. This gave the single best improvement,
aside from the mouthpiece modding.
Mouthpiece Modifications:
This started with my trumpet, when I got a 3-C mouthpiece I no longer needed
my old 7-C, so I bored it out with a dremmel grinder. I made it much deeper, and
wider and consequently got a more mellow tone out of it. I found I could use a
dremmel tool with a felt tip, and polishing rouges to make it very smooth inside.
It worked pretty good. Then I moved on to my Pic trumpet mouthpiece.
Originally it was shaped like a 5-gallon bucket, flat with steep tall sides, bad.
First I had to reduce the sides, and since I didn't have a belt sander, the only way
to do it evenly was by rubbing it in a circular motion on a knife sharpening stone.
This slowly wore it down to the point I could properly round it out. Now it works
much nicer.
Other Modifications:
Occasionally somebody will ask me to fix something, and here I will list a few common boo-boos that horns get, and how to fix them.
J.W. Pepper Cornet:
This was my first modified horn, and I love it. It was made in about 1905, which places it at about 103 years old! When I first got it, it did not play hardly at all. It was completely black with tarnish, had stuck valves and slides, missing parts, cracked tubing, etc. The first thing I did was remove the tarnish, I didthis with pencil erasers, and lots of household chemicals. Now the horn was gray instead of black. I found sent the horn away to be fixed, and it was playable when it came back but sounded like a rabbit in distress (not good). Some of the replaced parts did not match. I found a bottle of Turtle Wax Chrome Polish in our bathroom closet, and that shined it up pretty nice. I eventually got better polish, and even formulated my own. I found several pin holes in the tubing, which I patched with clear fingernail polish, it works well for a temporary fix. I then slowly and methodically started taking out the dents in the bell, by bending it roughly in place, and smoothing them out with a wooden
J.W. York Cornet:
This horn was made in 1913, and that makes it about 95 years old. I cleaned it up when I got it, but it was missing pieces, so I could not play it, I sent it away to get it fixed (by different people) and I was pleased when it came back. I didn't do much else to it except maintain it, it is my primary horn now, I play it everywhere I go. I did learn that If one uses horn and rotor oil on the slides it works much better than slide grease. I also modified the mouthpiece a little.
King Student Model Trumpet:
This was my first horn, I do not know how old it is, and I do not really care. After getting my J.W. York, this horn became my primary guinea pig. The first Thing I did was trip off all the lacquer whit metal polish, it took forever. Then I gave it a good polishing, and it was super shiny. I then began to experiment with copper plating on it, just to give it a unique appearance. The copper is still there, but it doesn't look very nice, I may finish plating it someday, if I can borrow it long enough from the kid I sold it to. I also annealed the bell, and attempted to electroplate the valves. The annealing helped, but the electroplating did not, my solution was not good enough at the time. I also perfected my soldering technique on this horn. I will not be able to get more pictures of it, so for now this one will do. I also discovered that one can modify a mouthpiece and make the horn sound radically different, more on that below.
Fluglehorn:
This is a cheapo fluglehorn, but it plays okay. I didn't do much to it except modify the mouthpiece a little.
Piccolo Trumpet:
Mouthpiece Modifications:
This started with my trumpet, when I got a 3-C mouthpiece I no longer needed
my old 7-C, so I bored it out with a dremmel grinder. I made it much deeper, and
wider and consequently got a more mellow tone out of it. I found I could use a
dremmel tool with a felt tip, and polishing rouges to make it very smooth inside.
It worked pretty good. Then I moved on to my Pic trumpet mouthpiece.
Originally it was shaped like a 5-gallon bucket, flat with steep tall sides, bad.
First I had to reduce the sides, and since I didn't have a belt sander, the only way
to do it evenly was by rubbing it in a circular motion on a knife sharpening stone.
This slowly wore it down to the point I could properly round it out. Now it works
much nicer.
Other Modifications:
Occasionally somebody will ask me to fix something, and here I will list a few common boo-boos that horns get, and how to fix them.