This is gonna sound crazy, guys.
I don't have much experience with soldering, nor do I own a large host of tools or anything. But what are prospects of being able to building franken-horns and making modifications (in very cheap, low quality instruments to start) at the home-front?
What kind of knowledge/skills and tools would likely be required?
Building stuff... at home?
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ttf_davdud101
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ttf_Full Pedal Trombonist
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One of my friends went to a repair workshop. If there is anything like that near you do it! Other than that if you have a complete junk horn and a torch tear it apart and practice putting it back together straight. Oh you'll need solder, too.
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ttf_Blowero
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Building stuff... at home?
You can solder with just one of those small canister propane torches, some tin/lead solder, and flux. You have to get the parts you are soldering clean - those wire tubing cleaners are good, both internal and external, or you could use emery cloth or steel wool. That would all be in the plumbing section at a good hardware store, or you might need to order the solder from Ferree's tools. If you are building slides, you need precision calipers and a leveling stone at the very minimum, so it starts to get expensive at that point. You need a scraper to remove excess solder and a buffing wheel to clean it up, unless you want to leave things with ugly solder globs all over. There are LOTS of tools you can buy if you want to do dent work. Look at the Ferree's catalog to see the kinds of things they have. That can get super expensive really fast.
The best thing you could do is make friends with a repair tech and see if they can let you watch them work. Most of it is a lot harder than you would think and takes a lot of practice.
The best thing you could do is make friends with a repair tech and see if they can let you watch them work. Most of it is a lot harder than you would think and takes a lot of practice.
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ttf_davdud101
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Building stuff... at home?
Great tips! I'll look into that... I hear that getting into the business of instrument repair isn't easy and IS costly, but it's something I'd more of less be interested in as a hobby, just something to gum around with using low-quality instruments that I find at garage sales for $30 (actually snagged a GREAT King 606 trumpet for about that much. Had a slightly dented bell but plays great!)
I'll see what happens!
I'll see what happens!
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ttf_Full Pedal Trombonist
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Building stuff... at home?
I have a slide with a damaged slide bow and I'm thinking of taking a crack at that. The solder work might not be very pretty, but I can brace the tubes so they don't go out of alignment and get the bow back into more of a crook shape and put it back. And if it goes poorly I can't imagine me doing any worse damage to it so I can just take it in and spend the money.
I haven't had luck recently finding cheapo instruments to tinker with lately. Last one was also a King 606, but a trombone.
I haven't had luck recently finding cheapo instruments to tinker with lately. Last one was also a King 606, but a trombone.
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ttf_Euphanasia
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Building stuff... at home?
Quote from: Full Pedal Trombonist on Jul 30, 2017, 08:53PMI have a slide with a damaged slide bow and I'm thinking of taking a crack at that. The solder work might not be very pretty, but I can brace the tubes so they don't go out of alignment and get the bow back into more of a crook shape and put it back. And if it goes poorly I can't imagine me doing any worse damage to it so I can just take it in and spend the money.
I haven't had luck recently finding cheapo instruments to tinker with lately. Last one was also a King 606, but a trombone.
When crooks bend, the tubes go out of alignment. I don't think bracing them in their current position would help, and it would probably end up bending the outer tubes. It's possible that once you remove the crook, the slide tubes will pop back into their proper orientation, but it's more likely that things have shifted. Slide work is one of the toughest things to do on a trombone.
I haven't had luck recently finding cheapo instruments to tinker with lately. Last one was also a King 606, but a trombone.
When crooks bend, the tubes go out of alignment. I don't think bracing them in their current position would help, and it would probably end up bending the outer tubes. It's possible that once you remove the crook, the slide tubes will pop back into their proper orientation, but it's more likely that things have shifted. Slide work is one of the toughest things to do on a trombone.
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ttf_Full Pedal Trombonist
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Building stuff... at home?
Quote from: Euphanasia on Jul 30, 2017, 10:15PMWhen crooks bend, the tubes go out of alignment. I don't think bracing them in their current position would help, and it would probably end up bending the outer tubes. It's possible that once you remove the crook, the slide tubes will pop back into their proper orientation, but it's more likely that things have shifted. Slide work is one of the toughest things to do on a trombone.
Yeah that makes sense! It's just a slide where the peg at the end pushed in a bit. The slide is okay otherwise. Not a crucial slide to my stable of horns.
Yeah that makes sense! It's just a slide where the peg at the end pushed in a bit. The slide is okay otherwise. Not a crucial slide to my stable of horns.
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ttf_timothy42b
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Quote from: Full Pedal Trombonist on Jul 30, 2017, 08:53PMI have a slide with a damaged slide bow and I'm thinking of taking a crack at that.
This is not an easy repair. You have to take the slide crook off to fix it. To put it back on you have to take the hand brace off and solder it all back together parallel. Then you have to take the inner slide apart and solder that back together to fit the outer slide.
The good thing is you will be well qualified if you ever have to do your own plumbing.
This is not an easy repair. You have to take the slide crook off to fix it. To put it back on you have to take the hand brace off and solder it all back together parallel. Then you have to take the inner slide apart and solder that back together to fit the outer slide.
The good thing is you will be well qualified if you ever have to do your own plumbing.
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ttf_elmsandr
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Building stuff... at home?
As somebody that is an advance amateur in making and repairing horns.... I don't do slide work that involves soldering. It is a PITA and you aren't good at it unless you do enough of it to stay in practice. I do have a leveling stone and the correct tools (thanks to Cliff Ferree), but I will only do minor work to straighten tubes on it.
Taking out shallow dents, freeing stuck slides, and frankenhorn building... all very doable with minor investment in tools. A lot of that tooling can be improvised from wood dowels, table legs, or autobody stuff. Watch picking up tools on eBay- by that I mean that eBay is generally a BAD place to buy tools. I lose count over how many mandrels and burnishers sell for more on eBay than they would cost you new from Ferree's.
Take some horn and make it modular, making new valve sections, flares, or such isn't too bad and is relatively easy to fix if you screw it up. Making it exact is quite difficult, but for messing around is a pretty clean place to start.
Cheers,
Andy
Taking out shallow dents, freeing stuck slides, and frankenhorn building... all very doable with minor investment in tools. A lot of that tooling can be improvised from wood dowels, table legs, or autobody stuff. Watch picking up tools on eBay- by that I mean that eBay is generally a BAD place to buy tools. I lose count over how many mandrels and burnishers sell for more on eBay than they would cost you new from Ferree's.
Take some horn and make it modular, making new valve sections, flares, or such isn't too bad and is relatively easy to fix if you screw it up. Making it exact is quite difficult, but for messing around is a pretty clean place to start.
Cheers,
Andy
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ttf_Blowero
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Just for clarification - you would want to use wood table legs etc. to hold your work in a vise. Wood is too soft for any kind of dent work (with the exception of some hardwood tuba dent balls that Ferrees makes).
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ttf_blast
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Slides are fine to work on as long as you take your time. Get everything right as per the book... then when the slide is poor, as it usually is, work with it until it glides. Feel the force Luke 
Chris Stearn
Chris Stearn
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ttf_Stewbones43
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Building stuff... at home?
The best advice I can give from many years of making Frankenbones is "Plan everything out very carefully"
I used to spend more time working out how I was going to do something than I hoped to spend actually doing it. It didn't always work out because no matter how many possible problems you envisage and how many solutions to those problems you plan, another one will occur.
Another tip is to take your time sourcing the parts you need. Don't try to use a part that is nearly right just to save time or a bit of money. You will never be satisfied with the end product.
Good luck. There is an enormous sense of self-satisfaction when you make the world's first ever double trigger, contrabass trombone pitched in Ab basso, just using an old Bundy and a Jinbao clone of something that originally worked!
Cheers
Stewbones
I used to spend more time working out how I was going to do something than I hoped to spend actually doing it. It didn't always work out because no matter how many possible problems you envisage and how many solutions to those problems you plan, another one will occur.
Another tip is to take your time sourcing the parts you need. Don't try to use a part that is nearly right just to save time or a bit of money. You will never be satisfied with the end product.
Good luck. There is an enormous sense of self-satisfaction when you make the world's first ever double trigger, contrabass trombone pitched in Ab basso, just using an old Bundy and a Jinbao clone of something that originally worked!
Cheers
Stewbones
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ttf_Stewbones43
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Building stuff... at home?
The best advice I can give from many years of making Frankenbones is "Plan everything out very carefully"
I used to spend more time working out how I was going to do something than I hoped to spend actually doing it. It didn't always work out because no matter how many possible problems you envisage and how many solutions to those problems you plan, another one will occur.
Another tip is to take your time sourcing the parts you need. Don't try to use a part that is nearly right just to save time or a bit of money. You will never be satisfied with the end product.
Good luck. There is an enormous sense of self-satisfaction when you make the world's first ever double trigger, contrabass trombone pitched in Ab basso, just using an old Bundy and a Jinbao clone of something that originally worked!
Cheers
Stewbones
I used to spend more time working out how I was going to do something than I hoped to spend actually doing it. It didn't always work out because no matter how many possible problems you envisage and how many solutions to those problems you plan, another one will occur.
Another tip is to take your time sourcing the parts you need. Don't try to use a part that is nearly right just to save time or a bit of money. You will never be satisfied with the end product.
Good luck. There is an enormous sense of self-satisfaction when you make the world's first ever double trigger, contrabass trombone pitched in Ab basso, just using an old Bundy and a Jinbao clone of something that originally worked!
Cheers
Stewbones