Week 9

This week I moved to the Woodwind Lab.  The first thing we had to do was a few house keeping tasks in order to prepare for working on clarinets. I covered my desk rug with muslim so that it would be easy to find pivot screws and other small parts that may land on my bench. I also made a clarinet screw board. This board is used when taking apart a clarinet. It keeps track of hinge rods and pivot screws so that each screw and hinge rod corresponds to the correct key or lever. After making the screw board I took apart my methods clarinet. I started with the upper joint and then moved to the lower joint. Taking apart the clarinet allowed me to learn the names of the keys and levers. I am very excited to learn more about the clarinet.

Wood block and paper that covers the block

Paper Mod Podged to the block

Wood dowel widdled to add a piece of mylar that is 0.001"

Finished feeler used for padding

Screw block with hinge rods and pivot screws from the upper joint

Disassembled upper joint

Organized keys

Week 8

This week was a work week. It was my time to finish up work on my project trumpet before I turned it in on Friday. I spent the beginning of the week finishing dents and alignments so that I would be ready to install the mouth pipe in the middle of the week. I knew that I would have to spot lacquer the trumpet and mouth pipe before I could turn it in. I wanted to have all of the work done before Friday so that the lacquer would have time to dry overnight. I finished lacquering on Thursday so that Friday I could work on porting and water key installation. I also vacuumed out the case and did a minor case repair. After finishing the invoice on the computer my trumpet was ready to turn in. I enjoyed this project immensely! It was a great learning experience. When I first opened the case weeks ago and the trumpet was in pieces I never imagined that I would be able to make this trumpet play. It was a gratifying experience and I cannot wait to work on more horns.

Throat dents that I worked on in the beginning of the week

Fitting the mouth pipe to casing brace

Fitting 'S' braces

Ready for lacquering

Finished project trumpet!

Week 7

The topic this week was all about replacing a mouth pipe. On my project trumpet the mouth pipe was severely damaged and I replaced it with an Allied Universal mouth pipe. The first step was to remove the mouth pipe assembly from my trumpet. Since mine was not attached to start with this was simple. Then I had to take off all of the braces and wipe the excess solder down to tinning. Next, I took apart the mouth pipe assembly. I took of the receiver first and then the upper outer main tuning slide tube. The most exciting part of this process was that my finger hook did not fall off! Once I had it all apart I needed to prep all of the surfaces that were going to be soldered back together. I wiped, scraped and sanded the inside and outside of tubes. This was to remove solder, I also removed the old lacquer so that it did not burn when I soldered the mouth pipe back together. After they were sanded I buffed and degreased so that the solder would flow on the parts. The next step was fitting the new mouth pipe to the old receiver and outer slide tube. In order to make the parts fit I had to flare the one end with a morse #1 taper tool and then insert brass shims to fill the rest of the gap. After everything was fitted and aligned I soldered the mouth pipe assembly together.

The original mouth pipe assembly

Using an old mouth piece to clamp in the vice to pull the
receiver off the mouth pipe

Heating up the outer slide tube

Solder clip on the finger hook so it won't fall off

Mouth pipe assembly apart

Adding shims to fill in the space

Newly assembled mouth pipe 

Week 6

This week I learned about bell buckles. A buckle can be defined as an instrument where the throat is out of round and may have lighting bolt creases. A buckle can also have a bell fold but in order to fix the bell you have to work out the buckle first. The best tool to start fixing a buckle is a dent roller. First I needed to go after the creases and have the roller inside the bell. It is best to work out as many creases from the inside before moving to the outside. When rolling the outside of the bell it is important to avoid rolling the throat because the bell is out of round and then there will be a false sense of round. Once the bell is coming back to round I had to hammer some of the creases. When hammering it is important to ask yourself "do I need to be hammering?" Hammering can thin the brass so it is important that you make sure you have to hammer. The finishing step in buckles is to make the throat round and the rim flat. These can be accomplished with hammers, rollers and burnishers.

Trombone bell buckle 

The throat is out of round

Restored bell