TromboneChat

So I got a pretty nasty dent in my slide yesterday and my tech said he’ll try to pop out the dent and quoted me an hour of work ($100). He said if that doesn’t truly work he’ll have to do take the slide apart and true the tubes and maybe rotate one of the tubes to get it to work. This came out to $200 total.

My question is, does it make sense to put $200 into a king 3b slide or should I just try to find a replacement slide? I feel like those typically go for $250-300.

What would you do? Maybe I’ll get lucky and the dent removal worth $100 will work.

I'm not sure where you'd find a nice 3b slide for $300... if you do, let me know

2 Bills for that work is cheap.

I would also like to know where you can find good slides, that don't require a good amount of work, for that price.

hornbuilder wrote: ↑Fri Jan 14, 2022 11:30 am 2 Bills for that work is cheap.

I would also like to know where you can find good slides, that don't require a good amount of work, for that price.

Looks like you can get a new one for $869:

https://www.hickeys.com/music/brass/tro ... 2103f-.php

Did both inner and outer get dinged? If its just the outer, you may want to ask how much an outer tube costs. King outers aren't too expensive IIRC. Might be comparably priced... and new.

I listed a freshly serviced 3b slide (dents removed, inner and outer polished, aligned) with no real issues other than lacquer loss on here for 250€ a while back so I think with some patience you might find one. I didn’t get a lot of interest at the time and ended up keeping it and getting the rest of the horn fixed up. I thought the lack of interest indicated I’d overpriced it!

Here’s a curveball, if the inner slide isn’t damaged, maybe look at a butler outer slide? Should work out about the same as a complete new 3b slide.

How bad of a dent? Did it dent the inner slide as well? With enough of a hit, a re-assembly of the slide may be warranted.

Get the slide fixed

MrHCinDE wrote: ↑Fri Jan 14, 2022 12:20 pm I listed a freshly serviced 3b slide (dents removed, inner and outer polished, aligned) with no real issues other than lacquer loss on here for 250€ a while back so I think with some patience you might find one. I didn’t get a lot of interest at the time and ended up keeping it and getting the rest of the horn fixed up. I thought the lack of interest indicated I’d overpriced it!

Here’s a curveball, if the inner slide isn’t damaged, maybe look at a butler outer slide? Should work out about the same as a complete new 3b slide.

Working for Butler?

WGWTR180 wrote: ↑Sat Jan 15, 2022 5:57 am Working for Butler?

Haha, good one, if only! Don‘t think it would do them any favours to be endorsed by a rank amateur like me!

Was just on my radar as I have a slide with what could be red rot on both outers. Most probably my slide has plenty of life left in it yet but when it comes to replacement of the outers, it‘ll be something to consider. I checked out the butler website the other day and it might not work out much more than getting new outers fitted including fitting and lacquer.

If the OP has access to a good tech who can repair their slide it‘ll likely be the cheapest option but if a new slide was on the cards, getting a CF outer is also worthy of consideration IMHO.

If you buy a cheap slide, you're probably going to have to get work done on it anyway. You're more likely to wind up with good results by fixing what you have.

Butler slide is definitely going on my 3B once I figure out if I ant to stick to 508/508 or go 508/525.

I just had mine in the shop getting a pipe removed (shoutout to Brad Close who did magnificent work on adapting a large bore leadpipe collar at my request). He was mentioning the slide action on mine isn’t great but the nickel slides sometimes aren’t amenable to fixing after they’ve already been fixed so I had him leave it be for now because I might go that route myself with he carbon fiber outers

A brand-new 3b slide from Conn-Selmer will run about $900 after shipping:

https://www.hickeys.com/music/brass/tro ... 2103f-.php

New Butler outers will cost about the same. A used 3b (entire horn) in good playing condition can be found for $750.

Relative to that, $200 sounds pretty good. An experienced tech's work is _extremely_ good value.

So it turns out that the dent was on the outer and the inner. The tech I was working with was able to get them rolled out. It will definitely allow for me to continue to work, but didn't bring it back to it's full life.

What really needs to be done is replace the tubes, but I'll do that later. I just don't want to replace both tubes on my horn right now. I did think about looking into a Butler outer slide, and that might be in my future too. We will see.