‘53 Olds Recording Overhaul?

[PDP57]

Hi all! This is my first post here. I have a ‘53 and a (about) ‘63 Olds Recording I also have a late ‘60’s Olds Super (Bought new in Jr High School and played ever since.). I purchased the ‘63 Fullerton Recording from a gentleman who was retiring from playing. The ‘53 LA Recording has been my father’s (Purchased new when he was in college. ) It was passed to me a couple years ago when at 86, my father suffered a complete collapse of his embouchure. He played it throughout all those years. I already had to patch a small hole in the 2nd valve slide due to corrosion from maybe inside and out (looked like his hand or thumb must have rested there when he played). Some of the plating on the valves has worn through. It still plays great, but I know it should have a valve overhaul. My question is .... Should I also invest in a complete horn overhaul? I look forward to hearing your views on this.

[Beyond16]

[theslawdawg]

[deleted_user_687c31b]

While not quite the same as your question, I was thinking about re-laquering or plating my Olds Recording. Eventually I saw pictures of a completed restored to new condition Olds on Trumpet Herald...and I'm SO glad I didn't re-laquer it! It just doesn't look the same without the wear and tear.

[JeffM729]

The decision is really up to you.

Do you want to keep your father's horn as it was when he passed or restore it for your future use?

[PDP57]

[JeffM729]

[Bflatman]

I disagree

I have owned and continue to own and play daily, instruments from the 50's 60's and 70's and not one of them has ever required a valve job they all play magnificently and beautifully.

Some instruments however have looser valves than others.

A gap of 0.01 inches is a tiny gap it is 0.24 millimeters and is shared around the valve so the real gap around the valve is 0.12 millimeters.

When oil is used around the valve this gap entirely disappears and compression is high.

0.12 millimeters is a huge gap if you are an engineer working on engines and pumps that pressurise gases or pump liquids but a trumpet is not a pump and does not pressurise a gas.

The instrument is open to the atmosphere and all attempts to pressurise the air in the instrument is defeated as the air vents freely and immediately out of the bell.

Blow into a straw that is open at the other end and see how much pressure you can build up in the open straw, it is zero pressure no matter how long you blow into the straw.

So why does a horn with a minute hole in it play badly and a horn with leaky valves plays well.

First of all the air is not under pressure in the instrument so no leakage occurs or can occur around the valves. Secondly the tones are generated by setting up a standing wave in the instrument.

And any hole however small will force a node between wavelengths in the standing wave to sit at the exact position of the hole in the same way that a node sits at the end of the bell because that is the exact position of the only hole.

What this means is in an instrument with looser valves there is no effect on the standing wave caused by the loose fitting valves and the instrument plays correctly whereas with a tiny hole in the tube odd wavelengths are forced to appear within the tube length and this generates semitones quartertones and out of tune tones.

The same effect is seen by playing a tone and then operating the spit valve while playing. A node is forced to appear at the spit valve by the appearance of the hole that appears there when you open the valve.

So why are some valves loose and some close fitting in old instruments.

This is easily explained, some manufacturers designed instruments with tight fitting valves, such as yamaha and other manufacturers designed instruments with looser valves such as olds and conn.

Some players rejected instruments with tight fitting valves because it is harder to bend notes in instruments with tight fitting valves and they only accepted the instrument after the valves were lapped to make them looser.

This forced manufacturers to continue to make instruments with looser valves or lose customers in the jazz genre.

Why did some manufacturers make loose fitting valves in the first place.

The answer is in the 19th century and for much of the 20th century instruments were not available with extendable third or first valve slides.

You had to lip all your notes into tune or you play out of tune. Tight fitting valves prevent easy lipping of notes into tune. this forced manufacturers to make loose fitting valves or sell instruments that are hard to play in tune if not impossible.

Basically you had to lip almost everything on the older instruments and you need loose valves to do that

I play on instruments with no extendsble slides and I play all notes in tune or relatively so by constant lipping.

I play in ensembles and in thousands of performances and nobody has ever had any problem with my tuning apart from one time and checking on a tuner revealed that I was nailing the tuning, I lip my notes into tune easily.

In modern instruments all of them have tight valves and the player must work the slides to stay in tune and tuning issues and intonation issues of instruments not in tune with themselves throughout the instruments range are raised in the forum.

I deeply suspect that the inescapable tuning issues of trumpets are exposed by the modern tight valves and having valve jobs performed on instruments that were built with and designed to have looser valves.

These instruments are easily played in tune when they are played with the loose valves they were built with. But if you cannot lip notes you are royally up the creek with older instruments.

In answer to your question I would have the instrument refurbished all day every day in a snap, but I would refuse to have a valve job done unless there was a very good reason.

[Dayton]

In case it helps you make your decision, I'll offer that I recently had a 1920s King Liberty overhauled. It was in rough shape. The price to make it reliably playable was $975 from a well-known trumpet technician. No cosmetic work, just valves, dents, etc.

In 2016 I had a 1940s French Besson Meha overhauled. It was in pretty good shape, but the valves were worn to the point where they were no longer reliable. The price to get that back into top playing condition was $655. Again, no cosmetic work, just valves and dents.

Both of those horns were restored for sentimental reasons as they have been in the family for many years. The Besson is a fine horn and the money spent was worth it as I have performed with it a number of times.

Good luck!

[adagiotrumpet]

If it were my horn in the same situation, I would want to restore it to its optimal playing condition. I would send it back to a first rate technician like Dr. Valve and have it restored mechanically. Re-plate the valves if necessary, align the valves, replace any tubing that is exhibiting significant red rot, etc. If there were any pin holes due to corrosion, I would have them patched as neatly as possible. I would not necessarily have it stripped and re-lacquered or re-plated. I would want to keep the original exterior patina. They only look original once, not to mention this would avoid any additional buffing and/or re-working of the metal. To me, worn original lacquer or plating beats new and shiny every time.

[theslawdawg]

I'm sorry, I didn't go into detail about my Dad's horn. It was restored because it needed it. The horn had seen it's days of hard playing but was not touched for a very long time. Valves were frozen, leadpipe was bent, lots of bumps and bruises and beat the hell out of. I will post pictures of the restore job when I have time today.

If I were to sell it...I would have had to pay someone to take it. If I were to keep it, something needed to be done.
_________________
My go-to Trumpet and Flugel: Thane.
Greg Black MPs

[PDP57]

Thanks to all of you that replied. After reading all the different viewpoints, I’m going to keep playing it as is. I like the way it plays, so until it shows a significant problem I’ll keep playing.

[VetPsychWars]

Sorry I missed the discussion, but what the heck.

When I received my grandfather's Buescher 400 as a kid, I was a typical kid and by the time I graduated, it was a literal wreck.

A couple of visits to Charlie Melk and it was looking new again with the protective epoxy lacquer.

After playing it for a while and listening to people say, I only oil my horn once a week! I had worn out the valved and had them rebuilt.

It was like playing a new horn, because it was.

Eventually I restored other horns and I have a Buescherr Lightweight 400 with rebuilt valves and replaced slide tubes (the inner, not the outer). That horn plays so well now it's ridiculous. I expend so little effort playing it... I have finally learned to whisper in it and music comes out. These horns do not tolerate overblowing.

Some people will tell you it's a bad idea economicly, you'll never get your money back out of it... these are people who play a horn for a year and ditch it to get something else.

If you can afford it, I fully support whatever restoration you want to do, because none of the things I mentioned EVER make a horn play worse, only better.

Some people freak out when the horn comes back playing better because it's different. There's no need to freak out, within a week you'll be used to it again and you might just find that efficiency and minimum effort can pay off for you too.

Tom
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1950 Buescher Lightweight 400 Trumpet
1949 Buescher 400 Trumpet
1939 Buescher 400 Cornet
GR65M, GR65 Cor #1

[Crazy Finn]

[VetPsychWars]

[deleted_user_687c31b]

[Craig Swartz]

[VetPsychWars]

[VetPsychWars]

[deleted_user_687c31b]