Thursday, November 1, 2012

Week 10- Soldering, Lathe Projects, and More


The next lathe project was creating a trumpet main tuning slide mandrel.  Made of brass, the mandrel is sized to the most common diameter of main tuning slides (0.458").  The mandrel can be used for forming, burnishing, and even some swedging type repairs. 


First, I faced one end of the brass rod.  Then in a few consecutive passes, I turned the diameter of the brass rod down to the 0.458" measurement. The next step was center drilling and tapping the rod to allow a handle to be inserted into the mandrel.  A final cut and facing of the opposite side produced the final product seen below.


Alongside the lathe project was a soft solder job.  After filing a brass rod down to fit the arc on a bare trumpet bell, soft solder was used to attach the rod to the trumpet bell.  After the initial solder, I had to wipe to tin and hand buff the bell and brass rod brace.


The end result produced a high shine finish with nearly all traces of solder removed from the area surrounding the brace.



Week 9- Welcome to Brass Lab


The halfway point of the semester means that we move workshops.  We are now in the brass lab.  Immediately we went to work on trumpet nomenclature.  We took apart our trumpets, learned about the various parts and the metals they were made of.  In order to do any work on aligning the piston valves, Greg Beckwith helped us make a porting tool.  
This was our first time silver soldering.  I was successful in soldering my part at a 90 degree angle.  After sanding and buffing, I was able to use my porting tool for the first time!



Using plastic tubing, I can mark the height of the knuckle to the valve threads.  From there, I am able to make sure the down stroke of the piston lines up precisely between the port and the knuckle.


Piston valves are an extremely interesting system.  By simply lining up ports with their respective knuckles, specific lengthening and shortening of tubing on the instrument produce different notes.  The tolerance between the piston and the valve casing is only 0.010".  With measurements this small, it is important to be extremely precise with our maintenance and repairs.
To finish off the week we marked trombone bells with marker to show the direction of the buffing wheel.  After completing the buffing of my trombone bell I am looking forward to a lathe project, a soft soldering project, and more practice on repairing and maintaining brass instruments next week.

Week 8- Finishing Flute Repairs

After soft soldering a post back together on my Music & Arts flute, I had some clean up to do.  After wiping to tin and using a very small amount of Light Green Compound on blue cloth, I used a silver polish to buff away the excess material.  While there were some surface scratch marks remaining, I was able to remove the majority of the cosmetic damage.  

 I then finished the repad on the body of the flute.  Once the pads were seating and I put the flute in the oven, I was able to cork the body and regulate it.  I was able to eliminate all lost motion. Finally, I polished the body and keys for a final product that I was very pleased with.