Today, Greg brought in a neat horn made by M. Jiracek & Sons. Look at the valve arrangement, they are definitely different. The link to this company's website is www.jiracek.eu/en.html. This is a Czech company that offers several interesting instruments, as well as some historical brass instruments. I can not speak to the playability of such a valve arrangement on the horn but it was definitely a joy to see.

Just another day in the shop. This is Greg and John, two of the instructors for the course.

This bell fold is far from being done but I want to go ahead and post some pictures of the progress that has all ready taken place.



The picture above shows the fold, which stretches all the way around the bell, making this more of a restoration than just a quick fix. There was no reference with which to rely upon in order to know when the bell had returned to the original shape.

After several trips between the bell mandrel and the roller it is possible to see the bell starting to lie flat. I still need to spend a good deal of time with the burnisher in order to restore the surface to being as smooth as possible and will update as soon as that happens.

Today I built a first valve slide assembly.



First the parts.




Add the solder.




Then buff.

These parts were kindly donated to the school by the Yamaha Corporation, and this project would not have been possible without their help. The crooks for all student line Yamaha trumpets are the same size so I was able to use a Yamaha trumpet that the school owns for alignment and to hold the pieces while they were assembled.

More on the trumpet bell today. The first picture is after the chem room, the way the bell looked first thing this morning. Last week I filed the brass rod so that it would fit both the bell tail and bell stem to serve as a brace. Today I was able to solder the brass rod to the bell using a 63/37 soft solder and then began to buff. I had to hand buff the tail, crook and part of the stem and then used the buffing wheel for the rest of the stem, throat and bell flare. I think it turned out nicely and I am looking forward to the final buffing process soon.

The result of my first trip to the chem room. First a detergent soak in Simple Green and then the pickle with Slime Away.