Week 2

This week I spent a lot of time in the buffing room. I learned the proper way to buff trombone bells.  When buffing there is cut buffing and color buffing. Cut buffing is to remove surface scratchers and soft solder tinning. The most common compound we use is called Tripoli. Color buffing uses rouge which takes out the smaller scratches and brings brass to a mirror finish. There are three colors that we use in the shop: yellow, green and red rouge. When buffing the trombone bell we started by taking off the lumps of soft solder by heating up the solder and wiping the excess off. After cleaning off the solder I taped off the serial number and engraved logo. Taping these areas off allowed for the engraving to be kept intact because the buffing wheels remove brass in the process. Once the bell was taped I marked the bell with arrows so that I knew which way the buffing wheel was suppose to move around the bell. Then I moved to the buffing room where I started on the inside of the bell and worked my way to the outside. The end product was a mirror finish which will be helpful when removing dents later.