Old Boosey & Co Cornet and Besson Flugelhorn

[hartleymartin]

Hi everyone! A few months ago I cleaned up and did a basic service on a 1911 Boosey & Co Solbron Cornet - double water key type. The background for that instrument was that it was bought many years ago by someone's grandfather, but had been sitting in a cupboard for about the past 30 years after he passed away. I was asked to clean it up, lubricate it and generally put it into playable condition. I decided that I really liked old Boosey & Co Cornets, so I decided that I would acquire one. Sadly, this 1911 example was not for sale.

A few weeks of keeping an eye on eBay and GumTree as well as looking at the prices of new instruments such as Yamaha and Besson lead me to investigate several purchase options. One vintage Besson was offered to me, but when I came to look at it, every slide was seized, and everything on it was dented or bent out of alignment and the guy selling it wanted AUD$300 (US$200) for it. I was going to tell him that it was worth about $20 as a wall ornament because it would need extensive work to make it usable.

That left me a bit sad, but taught me to look to the UK rather than try to acquire something locally. A few weeks of scanning eBay and in the middle of the night, a 1923 single water-key model Solbron came up and the Buy-it-now was a very reasonable 45 pounds or about AUD$80/US$56. I grabbed it, the seller didn't want to ship to Australia, but I have previously used a parcel forwarding service in the UK to take care of that. The horn was complete, but no case. I had to do some faffing about ordering a case for it, get it shipped to the seller, who then shipped it to my parcel forwarding service, who then sent it to me. I paid a lot more for the case and shipping than I did for the cornet.

Cornet gets to Australia, and I immediately inspected it. There were numerous small dents in the shepherd's crook and a nasty dent in the bell where it had evidently been dropped/knocked at some point. This was visible in the photos, though I had personally overlooked it - partly explains why the asking price was relatively low. All five slides (yes, five) were stuck, but I eventually persuaded the first and second valve slides to move. I dumped a whole lot of rather thin modern valve oil into it and it actually played just fine! The mouthpiece was stuck in the receiver of the shank - this is one of those cornets that would have originally come with a B-flat, A and maybe an A-flat shank/crook, but the only one included was the B-flat.

A bit more effort was put into getting all slides moving. Nothing would budge, but I decided that a good cleaning might persuade things to co-operate. Warm bath with baking soda, salt and aluminium foil removed/loosened the tarnish and a soft buffing with a little valve oil and a soft rag got the whole thing clean. Stuck slides still did not move. I also thoroughly cleaned out the valves. When it arrived, the valves were all completely bone dry and a fair amount of green/brown/black crud was present at the bottom caps. Most of that came off with a soak in hot water with some mild dish soap. The original silver plating was in excellent condition for a 90+ year old cornet, having only worn off in a few spots, but was not all that visible. The few small places where it had worn were spots normally covered by the hand when playing anyway.

I proceeded to use a small pencil has torch to heat the stuck slides and applied some penetrating oil. The 3rd valve slide then moved... and one of the slide legs was stuck inside the tube - the solder holding it together had given way. Then the little knob/grip on that slide fell off.

It was at this point that I decided to hand it over to a professional instrument repairer for an appraisal. One phone call and a visit later, I asked him to make it playable, give it a good service and take the crease out of the bell. After a discussion, we decided that the priority was to make it a playable instrument and repair the bell. At some later stage the dents would be taken out of the shepherd's crook just so I could spread out the cost of all the repairs.

About two weeks later, I picked it up and it looked beautiful. All five slides now moved, a number of small solder repairs were made, the valves were hand-lapped and the alignment of all the various tubes corrected/adjusted. New felts were supplied, a new synthetic water key cork and a new spring for the water key (old one was knackered) All the valves had been thoroughly cleaned and polished up. New springs were fitted as the old ones looked to be all different and probably not the right size anyway.

I then took it straight to car, where I pulled it out of the case and started playing. Sure, the valve action is a bit loose compared to modern instruments, but the thing was made almost a century ago. Compression is not bad the tuning and intonation are good and the valves are not worn and do not leak. It does require a slightly thicker valve oil than normally used today, and I was informed that pure lanolin was the appropriate slide grease for it. (There is an amusing anecdote about the lanolin coming up.)

Photos will follow soon. The repairer took a series of photos before and during the repair. I also have the photos from the eBay listing and couple I have taken after the repairs. I just have to sort out the file hosting. Stay tuned for the story to continue!
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Martin Hartley

[hartleymartin]

At the repairer's shop before work commenced. Note the 3rd tuning slide!


A couple of views of the dent/crease in the bell. This was the only "cosmetic" work done. All other work was to put the instrument into playing condition and make all the tuning slides move again. Not shown by the photos was that the lead pipe and receiver were bent inwards. This didn't seem to affect playability, but I had it straightened out more for the sake of ergonomics.


Yes, that dent looks really, really bad close up. Whilst it would have been perfectly playable with that dent, everyone would have noticed it when I showed it to my friends. Instead, I can now show them the feint line which shows where the repair work was carried out.


The secondary tuning section/slide has now been unstuck. I do not have a history/provenience of this instrument. This may have been an original part or a later conversion. I suspect that this may have been a later addition or conversion for "International Pitch." This was the section supplied when I purchased it. The original was probably a shorter one for High Pitch A452-455. I would like to obtain a shorter high pitch tuning section or have one made, but I doubt that anyone would have kept spares.


(Left) Extraction of the stuck leg of the 3rd valve tuning slide. (Right:) 3rd valve tuning slide re-soldered. The little "nub" had also fallen off when I got it, so that was re-attached. The area around where it was re-soldered is not perfect any more, but I don't mind as long as it is functional and it stays put!


The repairer gently "massages" the bell back into shape. There is a photo showing him at work with a hide mallet, but I have not posted it online to respect his privacy.


These are some of the dents in the rather battered shepherd's crook. I did not have any of these removed this time around since this end faces towards the player and is not normally visible. When I've got some more money I'll have these dents removed/reduced.


First round of repairs completed. The only work needed to finish the repair/refurbishment is to get the dents out of the shepherd's crook.


The bell end after dent/crease removal. Not absolutely perfect, but you would hardly be able to tell that it had that nasty dent in it shown previously. It already has my dirty finger-prints on it from when I was taking a closer inspection of the repair works.

Inside the case the two mouthpieces are (upper) a generic 7C, I believe made by Amati (it came with the B&H400 which I repaired then junked) and (lower) a "Prototype C" mouthpiece which may or may not be original to this instrument. It may be original since the silver is now worn and some brass is showing through on the rim. The 7C was then given to a friend as a replacement for the Vincent Bach mouthpiece on another Boosey cornet which had lost a lot of plating and become rotten. That old Bach mouthpiece was the first time I have ever seen properly "rotted" brass!

I like it and plan to get that re-plated some time. That is a bit off into the future since I got a quote for the re-plating job the day after I got a quote for the service/repairs to my car! I may also get the buttons re-plated as they've become somewhat worn, though one might argue it is part of the patina or character of the instrument.

I am quite happy to recommend the services of Marco who operates a repair service in Sydney, Australia.
https://www.allbrassandwoodwindrepairs.com.au

I need to take some more photos to show how the valves were all cleaned and hand-lapped. He even went as far as to figure out the best valve oil mix, though silly me, I forgot to write it down! I have been told that another option is "Monster, Smoother" would be a good valve oil for this instrument unless I decide to try doing up my own mix of mineral oil and lanolin!
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Martin Hartley

[hartleymartin]

A couple of pictures from the eBay listing:


This one shows the dent just off to the side, though it isn't too obvious in this picture. I should have noticed that, but I was too busy admiring the engraving. Serial number on the bell dates it to 1923.


In this shot you can see how the shank/lead pipe is bent out of alignment. The mouthpiece was also frozen into the shank despite an overnight soak in WD40. While I was originally going to use my uncle's old KosiKup mouthpiece, I have found that the "Prototype C" supplied with the cornet is far more comfortable, especially on some higher notes. The KosiKup is somewhat larger and gives me a bigger tone on low notes, but I struggle to jump between harmonics/partials as I climb up the stave.


It was this rather "artsy" photo which caught my attention on the original eBay listing. I took a bit of a risk buying it, but I am glad that I did and I am very happy with the work done so far in repairing it.
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Martin Hartley

[hartleymartin]

Lubrication has become an interesting little adventure. Modern slide grease and valve oil doesn't work well on this old horn. The slide grease seems to dry out very quickly and go gunky and modern valve oil just won't cling to the bronze valves.

The advice from my instrument repairer was to use pure lanolin on the tuning slides. These old cornets don't have mobile 1st and 3rd slides, so a thicker lubricant is desirable. I find that the pure lanolin actually makes a very good seal on the tuning slides. I also use the lanolin on the threads of the top and bottom valve caps.

The valve oil situation has been a little more tricky. Modern trumpet valve oil won't stay put and almost immediately washes straight out when playing. I tried mixing in a little vasoline to thicken it, but it had a strange behaviour where it would go gloopy when cold and once warmed up it was wash straight out of the valves again. No good - don't use vasoline on your vintage horns.

I tried a WD-40 lanolin spray (they do lots of different sprays these days, including a very nice PTFE spray which is great on door hinges) but this emulsified with the spit and went gloopy as well, so that had to be all cleaned off.

I tried a mixture of lamp oil and singer oil, which seemed to do the trick. It actually clings to the "Solbron" valves, but was a little on the thin side. In the end, straight singer oil as sold in every supermarket in Australia for about AUD$4-5 for a 100mL bottle seems to be doing the trick. These valves are almost a century old and made of a completely different material to what they use today. I'll keep checking the state of the valves over the next week as I play to see if it interacts with water/spit, but it seems to be doing fine for now.
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Martin Hartley

[hartleymartin]

The mix with "lamp oil" works well enough, but I am also trying out a mixture using paraffin oil. So far, it seems to be less prone to emulsification. To be clear, this is not Kerosene. It is the same stuff as food-grade paraffin oil or "paraffinum liquidum" which is used in food preparation, sealing/finishing wooden cutting boards and kitchen implements and is even taken orally as a laxative.
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Martin Hartley

[Andy Del]

With this level of oil issues, it’s pretty clear the valves are rather worn. If you feel like it’s a player, a valve job will be in order.

Or, get in touch, our school has a number of B&H cornet to offload... in the clash Barnum and Bailey sense! 😈😈😈😈😈😈

Cheers

Andy
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so many horns, so few good notes...

[stumac]

I was given a 1906 Boosey cornet in very good condition similar to yours but with a thumb push rod on the 2nd tuning slide for quick changing to A.

No problem with the Solbron valves, Ultra Pure oil is fine, a sweet player but would be overpowered by modern cornets in a band.

It was sold by Fletchers music sole agents for Launceston and North Tasmania.

Regards, Stuart.

[hartleymartin]

[hartleymartin]

UPDATE:

So, I went and bought an old Besson (England) Flugelhorn. Pictures are from eBay listing. Class A "New Standard" Made in England.





I don't have an appropriate mouthpiece for it, so I've used a Kosikup Size 3 Cornet mouthpiece with a bit of tape wrapped around the shank. I'll get a proper flugelhorn mouthpiece some time soon. I tried to buy a proper flugel Kosikup mouthpiece from the seller's collection, but he wouldn't part with it or any other flugel mouthpiece. It appears to have been modified/converted to low pitch at some point. Just at the exit of the 3rd valve there appears to be either an extension or repair.

Unusual design for a flugelhorn. My only real complaint is that there isn't any obvious proper left-hand grip to hold it and it does feel a bit bell-heavy. I am told by the seller that it was owned by someone who was an Australian national champion cornet player several times over and he had to clear out the collection of old instruments he had acquired over decades of playing. I have a strange affinity for English-made instruments, but I would like to acquire a vintage French-made instrument at some stage.

Funny thing is that whilst I am a member of the "Trumpet Herald" forum the only instrument I don't own is a trumpet.
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Martin Hartley

[hartleymartin]

KosiKup Mouthpieces for Soprano Cornet (size 3) and Cornet (sizes 1-1/2 and 3) still looking for one for a Flugelhorn, but I have ordered a couple of budget and second-hand ones off the old FleaBay.


KosiKup Cornet Mouthpieces by Martin Hartley, on Flickr
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Martin Hartley