Second Semester: Week 4

Dents, dents and more dents! This week I worked on all of the dents in my french horn. I started with the bell and throat dents. I used the knowledge I have gained so far and applied that where I could. I also was able to use new tools specific to the french horn. The french horn can be awkward at times because there is so much tubing.

The bell stem area is heavily dented. The hard part about taking out dents here was that the area had been heavily worked previously.

A curved french horn mandrel that fits inside the bell and matches the arch. I put a ball attachment on the end to rebound the deep dents. There are different sized balls and cones that fit on the mandrels

Soldering a 'T' handle to a dent to pull it up

I put the 'T' handle in the vice and pulled up the dent

Another tool that can be soldered to a dent is a dent puller. This one was made by a previous student. The steel stock is used as the force that pulls the dent out

These are larger sized dent balls that come in an A and B set. I worked my way up the throat of the french horn by alternating dent balls

I placed the balls on a wire so that I could force the balls into the horn and then retrieve them

All of these new techniques are vital to taking out dents, especially when the horn has a lot of tubing