TromboneChat

Hey All,

I’m going to be adding a second in-line valve to 2-3 horns, and was looking for a couple suggestions from folks that have done some:

For retro-fit finger triggers, does anyone have ones that they’ve used and liked? I could make one without too much trouble, but I also could get something like instrument innovations or something from one of the standard makers. I have flexibility with valve placement and can alter parts to fit, so maybe the considerations would be ergonomics, sturdiness, and cost-effectiveness.

The second is something that I feel must be the case, but wanted to verify best-practices: If I were to need to alter the direction of how the valve is activated, it’s much better to braze an extra attachment point for the linkage onto the stop arm rather than to mess around with switching the bumper plate, right? I can’t think of the downside of altering the stop arm, but I can think of a lot of downsides of the latter.

Thanks for any input y’all, and I’ll let you know how they go

Yes, getting a different stop arm is usually cheaper and easier.

Speaking of which…. Depending on what horns you are looking to modify and WHY you are modding them, it is probably much easier (and possibly less expensive) to graft an entire modular double valve section on to the flare and tuning slide than it is to add a second valve. That said, without knowing why you want to do this and what horns you are starting with it is impossible to say.

Good luck, and share pictures!
Andy

Thanks Andy for the input! it’ll be a Yamaha Tenor and a Holton TR183; I’m not too worried about the ease part, most of the fun will be rewrapping the valve circuits and seeing what parts I can reuse and reconfigure!

That’s a great pair of horns to work with, especially the 183, there’s a lot of tonal room to experiment. For finger triggers, I’ve had good luck with Instrument Innovations stuff for sturdiness and modularity, but if you’re comfortable fabricating your own, you’ll probably get better ergonomics that way. And yeah, I agree on modifying the stop arm instead of touching the bumper plat.

The instrument innovation f and gb trigger kits are great. You can save money by making the lever yourself. Having a system without pins that runs on ball bearings ensures you won’t have any play in the trigger. I have used them and really like them.

I like the Olsen valves, bell rings and leadpipe receivers, so looks like I’ll like their linkage saddles too! Thanks again for weighing in y’all

A couple more thoughts:

On the Holton, when putting in the second valve, don’t assume that the first valve in sequence has to be the F valve. Could be easier to make that G/Gb than F. You can still attach the valve in the “second” position to the thumb lever. May even make the finger lever easier.

On the Yamaha, not knowing what model you’re starting with, it may be easier to move the stock valve to the second position if it is one of the many with the 180 ports.

Cheers,
Andy