Repair bell bow dents

[JohnE]

Hi,

I am looking at a horn to buy that has a few dents in the bell bow area....in the curve of the bell tube that goes into the first valve!!

The ones in the top part of the bell tube, and right in the bow may not be difficult to repair, but I was wondering if the ones in the lower part going into the valve could be repaired without removing the whole bell, and going into it from that end of the tube.

Being that it is silver plated, it concerns me that they would have to mess up the plating to heat it up so much to get it apart to do that.
Can they "cheaply" replate those small areas, and have it match OK.
Can they get it apart without messing it up.

The rest of the horn looks really nice, no other dings, nice bell, but the one, more like a "dent" than a "ding" it looks like in the photos, can't be overlooked. It needs corks, and a spit valve spring, and she said the second valve "sounds different" than the 1st, and 3rd. So I'm going to have to have it refurbished, but I don't want to have to have it replated, unless they can do "spot" replating.

I need to decide on bidding or not in a few hours!!!
Thanks for any replies.
_________________
King Famous Short Model Cornet 1904
King Super 20 Silversonic 1955
King Silver Flair 1970.......GR Carl Fischer Jazz
Weril Master Flugel.......Wild Thing Extreme #5

[Maarten van Weverwijk]

No worries!
Take/send it in to a good shop.

It's an easy repair that only involves dentballs, flexible rods and maybe a tiny bit of hammering, no soldering/de-soldering or re-plating needed at all. In at least 95% of the cases silverplate will not suffer from dent work; on the other hand, lacquer often can suffer from dent work.
However, it takes an experienced repair person to not over-expand the bell bow and modify the blow of the instrument in the process, or leave ugly rims from the inside out. So although it's a cheap repair, it definitely pays off to send it to one of the "big shots".
(I see you have an instrument with a l.pipe from Rogerbrass, hint, hint.)

Anyway, with the heat that's used for soldering instruments, silverplate will not chip off (lacquer mostly does). Problem is that when soldering silverplated and goldplated parts, the solder tends to love to flow over the plating and can leave dull grey stains if the repair guy is not taking extreme care; experience is the key word here.
But like I stated before, in your case no soldering is involved.

But "a second valve that sounds a different than the 1st and 3rd" makes me frown my eyebrows a bit. It could mean just a bad valve alignment or something bigger and far more expensive...

MvW.

[royjohn]

Agree that the bell bow dents can easily be repaired from the inside with dent balls and flexible cable, it's done all the time.

Spot plating of silver should be easy enough. I was discussing this with someone who does it a few days ago and he said that sometimes matching to heavy silver plate [the example was Getzen plating] was difficult and could leave a little line in the plating even if you tried to sand down the join area. However, it will still look a lot better than an unrepaired area and it should be relatively cheap. Pen plating kits are available on the internet and it is something that some might choose to try on their own.

I had some areas on an old York cornet from about 1900 spot plated and one could not tell what had been done. It looked very good. With spot plating of gold there is the problem of matching the gold color of older gold plating, but this isn't much of an issue with silver.

I'm more concerned over the issue of the valve repair, but I would suspect that it is related to valve alignment rather than leaking. If it did turn out to be a leaking valve, it would cost $300+ to rebuild the valves. However, usually one doesn't hear the complaint "it sounds different" from valve wear, just problems with alignment or even a valve that's got a hole in the ports, which is also a pretty easy fix.
_________________
royjohn
Trumpets: 1928 Holton Llewellyn Model, 1957 Holton 51LB, 2010 Custom C by Bill Jones, 2011 Custom D/Eb by Bill Jones
Flugels: 1975 Olds Superstar, 1970's Elkhardt, 1970's Getzen 4 valve
Cornet: 1970's Yamaha YCR-233S . . . and others . . .

[JohnE]

Good deal man!!!
Thanks for the info.
I hope the silver survives that one dent.
It doesn't look like it's quite to a "crease" stage
but a pretty ugly looking dent to me!!
The others are very minimal

"Doesnt affect playability at all though"!!!!!
Well, I might tend to argue that point.
Don't know how to prove it......but I know how to argue!!! LOL!!!

Now what's up with that 2nd valve??
Hopefully only deteriorated corks/felts or something like that.

Well thanks again
John
_________________
King Famous Short Model Cornet 1904
King Super 20 Silversonic 1955
King Silver Flair 1970.......GR Carl Fischer Jazz
Weril Master Flugel.......Wild Thing Extreme #5

[Capt.Kirk]

I agree with all of the above for the most part seldom does the bell have to come off but sometimes it does. The plating will not come off normally but it can take on a slight blue-sh rainbow effect.....Ever see the color of chromed drag pipes on a Harley where the chrome has changed colors due tot he heat and now has that gasoline on water in sunlight look where you get that blue-ish rainbow like effect. A very nice and knowledgeable man gave me a Besson 10-10 bell from I think the 1950. It had to have a drop of solder placed on the bell to fix s cut in the bead that would vibrate and buzz. The spot on the back of the bell where they heated it for the lead solder has a small blue -ish area around it. Oh it is silver plated by the way so I would think this is the only risk to heating up silver.
_________________
The only easy day was yesterday!

[royjohn]

Hi John,

Since Osmun markets a service to round out bell bows which have become ovoid when bent, they evidently think shape problems in this area can make a difference. I would think a big dent in this area would make some difference.

I don't think the silver is going to flake off when the dent is fixed. Something about being bonded at a molecular level, I would think.

As far as the second valve issues are concerned, it is easy enough to pop out the second valve slide and look at the alignment of the valve in the down position, if not the up. If it plays different with the second valve down, the down position is the thing to look at. If it isn't that, you could try brushing some soap suds around the second valve area and looking for leaks [soap bubbles will show]. I would bet it is a valve alignment issue, though.

Good luck with it and let us know what happens.
_________________
royjohn
Trumpets: 1928 Holton Llewellyn Model, 1957 Holton 51LB, 2010 Custom C by Bill Jones, 2011 Custom D/Eb by Bill Jones
Flugels: 1975 Olds Superstar, 1970's Elkhardt, 1970's Getzen 4 valve
Cornet: 1970's Yamaha YCR-233S . . . and others . . .

[JohnE]

I'm hoping the valve is just slapping because of worn or missing felt or cork, or a bad spring or something.
I do have it in mind that I may be in for a valve job, and several more hundred dollars invested....but then I have brand new valves.

I just didn't want a crappy looking horn if I didn't spend a thousand or so to have it totally replated.

OK...while we're on it.
Can they replate and hone the valve body without messing up the rest of the horns plating???
Not sure about that either.

You guys are a wealth of knowledge!!!

Thanks
_________________
King Famous Short Model Cornet 1904
King Super 20 Silversonic 1955
King Silver Flair 1970.......GR Carl Fischer Jazz
Weril Master Flugel.......Wild Thing Extreme #5

[JohnE]

I never delt with silver horns before.
With a lacquered one it's no big deal.
They can just strip it and do their work, and relacquer for $150 or so more.
But I get concerned messing with silver plating.
_________________
King Famous Short Model Cornet 1904
King Super 20 Silversonic 1955
King Silver Flair 1970.......GR Carl Fischer Jazz
Weril Master Flugel.......Wild Thing Extreme #5

[Maarten van Weverwijk]

[Maarten van Weverwijk]

BTW,
Between dent work, plating of the valve cluster and possible valve revision it sounds like a lot of work all together. Are you completely sure the instrument is worth it?
Just the dent work is cheap, but the rest makes it quite time consuming and costly.
What started off as a $50 repair is quickly heading towards $500...

MvW.

[JohnE]

Thanks MvW
I will get it expertly done if nessesary.
I'm responding directly to you to let you know....

I need to remove that horn you mentioned off my profile.
I "foolishly" sold it recently.
I can't make up my mind whether to pay down bills,
being the reason I listed it in the first place,
then changed my mind and was going to pull the listing when I got home.
But it already sold by the time I got home.
Or get myself back into debt getting another super bright horn.

I wonder if Brian is mad at me for selling it already, and would do
work for me if I needed it on this horn I'm looking at.
I'm just kidding...I just know he is a great person !!

So, I need to delete that horn now.
_________________
King Famous Short Model Cornet 1904
King Super 20 Silversonic 1955
King Silver Flair 1970.......GR Carl Fischer Jazz
Weril Master Flugel.......Wild Thing Extreme #5

[JohnE]

I didn't want to possibly arouse some bidding competion....
but I'll go ahead and tell you all.

You may not agree with me, and I certainly welcome your advise, and input....

It's not a Martin Committee, or Taylor, or etc., etc., etc.....

I guess I'm a King man at heart!!!
It's a 1970 King Silver Flair
Still early enough enough by what I've read to be a great horn.
Supposedly 1960's - early 1970's are still great according to some King loyalists I've read.

Right now the price is right, even if I had to put $500 into it.....in my opinion.
_________________
King Famous Short Model Cornet 1904
King Super 20 Silversonic 1955
King Silver Flair 1970.......GR Carl Fischer Jazz
Weril Master Flugel.......Wild Thing Extreme #5

[mcgovnor]

if u like the horn do not fix those dents.
the only way to fix them correctly is to pull them out..no matter what anyone says.
here it comes, but it doesn't matter.
no matter what anyone says.

[JohnE]

What exactly does "pull them out" mean?
Pull the bell tube off the horn, or pull the dents out by some fashion
_________________
King Famous Short Model Cornet 1904
King Super 20 Silversonic 1955
King Silver Flair 1970.......GR Carl Fischer Jazz
Weril Master Flugel.......Wild Thing Extreme #5

[KansasTrumpet]

[JohnE]

Everyone was talking about dent balls, and flex cables...
Then mcgovnor said they needed to be pulled out to be done correctly, no matter what anyone else said???
So I thought this was a whole different proceedure he was talking about.
He never responded with an elaboration.

I did buy the horn, and it should be here by next weekend.
You can see I already added it to my profile!!! And removed the Besson.

The girl that was selling it for her brother who can't play anymore due to getting Parkinson's, said she didn't mean to say the valve had "a noise" per se'......but just had a different pitch when she tapped it to check it's spring back!! So hopefully her untrained ears were just distinguishing a tighter air pressure sound in the middle valve, as compared to the outer valves, with larger slides and all.

I will check your site out KansasTrumpet.
Where are you located?? DUH!!! Kansas.
Does anyone know of expert repair people in the central Pennsylvania area?? That I could go to in person??
I will be wanting the dent removal, ultasonic, felts, corks, springs, and alignment check. Hopefully that's all!!!!

Later.......John
_________________
King Famous Short Model Cornet 1904
King Super 20 Silversonic 1955
King Silver Flair 1970.......GR Carl Fischer Jazz
Weril Master Flugel.......Wild Thing Extreme #5

[Maarten van Weverwijk]

In a literal sense, dent pulling is this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muy8Y3wMkP0

Transformed to brass instrument repair, a piece of brass will temporarely be soldered into the lowest point of a deep dent and then gets pulled. I've seen it demonstrated on hard to reach dents in tubas, but the result didn't convince me and still needed quite some additional work in order to make the repair look reasonable.
A similar technique is used for dented sax keyholes, but here you don't need to solder a brass peg into the dent. Just hook a U-shaped head behind the dent and "pull-hammer" (is that English?) the dent out. With dented sax keyholes, or dents around them, this works very well indeed.
The tool that I have looks very similar to the one used in the video, but also has an extra hook and leather string for stuck slide pulling.

I honestly don't see any advantage in using this method for taking out relatively small and easy to reach dents on smaller brass instruments like trumpets, but I might be speaking about a completely different technique than "mcgovner" referred too.

MvW.

[david mickley]

MvW - as usual you are right on the mark with your info but before I retired as a journeyman machine repairman I made my self the tool you were talking about. I drilled and tapped a 1/2 -13 hole in the end and made many adapters for different uses. It is called a slide-hammer. After over 5 years on this site I can finally put out some info that I know is correct. WooHoo
_________________
Chicago Benge 33XX
Burbank Benge 5X 59XX
Yamaha Flugel 231
assorted other horns

[Greenleaf]

[Maarten van Weverwijk]