I was busy finishing my final test for flange soldering at the beginning of the week. For our graded exam, we needed to follow all the steps talked about throughout Week 11 and perform our best soldering job, all the while being time efficient and following all safety guidelines. I was very happy with my end result, and was able to complete the project in just under one hour!
The next tool to create was a crook dent rod tool. The first step was to file a 1" taper and a 1/8" step onto a steel rod. We used 1/4" J2L14 stock for this project
To create the correct angle for the steel crook rod, I had to heat the steel- seen above- and then quickly hammer the metal to form around a cylindrical form. This process is seen in the picture below.
After removing a considerable amount of the heat varnish from the heating and forming, the end result was a slightly angled end of the crook rod, while the other end of the rod remained straight to use in other dent removal applications.
Continuing a busy week, we began work on my favorite project to date: building a first slide assembly! Beginning with stock parts, we cleaned the surfaces of the brass to ensure that the solder would flow completely, connecting the crook to the upper and lower inner 1st tuning slide tubes via the ferrules.
Fitting the tubes to the ferrules required use of a straight edge to ensure that the 1st slide tube would fit without gaps in the upper and lower outer 1st tuning slide tubes. My final soldering result can be seen below. It is visible where my feed points were on the tubes. While I would have wanted a cleaner result, I had to make do with my solder job.
After hand buffing and machine buffing the slide assembly, I fully degreased the assembly, and taped off the inner slide tubes. With Greg's help and instruction, I completed my first lacquer job. After 24 hours of dry time, the end result of my project can be seen below. While time consuming, completing this entire project allowed me to expand the possibilities of instrument repair as I can now assemble parts as well as repair.
Being able to repair bell bow dents as shown in the picture immediately to the right is time consuming. Using the Roth tool shown below, varying sized dent bells are threaded through the bell to remove dents. The idea is to use graduating sizes to lift the dents. However, blow outs and stuck dent balls are potential risks throughout the process. You can see however, that with the Roth tool and the help of canvas and delrin hammers to smooth out extremely creased ridges, I was able to restore the bell bow to an acceptable quality.
Rounding out the week was continued instruction on dent removal and repair. The topic of focus was bell bow dents. This was much more time consuming than I had expected, but most of the work could be completed with the trumpet completely assembled. I am quickly learning that any repairs involving disassembly can get timely and expensive!
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