Reunion

As I've mentioned previously, I've been having a discussion with a brass guru, Charlie Melk, regarding the possibility of having my favorite trumpet fully restored. Today he asked for some photos to get an idea of the work involved outside of the obvious: replacing the leadpipe which has red rot. So this evening after I returned home from work, I pulled the old girl out of the mothballs, so to speak.

Now, you have to realize that the last time this horn saw the light of day was roughly 22 years ago. I was more than a little apprehensive of what I would find when I opened its case. Was it black with tarnish? Were the slides stuck? My biggest fear was frozen valves since they had always been one of my favorite features. I took a deep breath and opened the case...

To my surprise, she hadn't turned to dust like the irrational part of my brain kept telling me to expect. In fact, the tarnish didn't even look that bad. I tugged on the main tuning slide and, after a moment of hesitation, it slid open. Whew. Likewise, the other slides were all movable. I used to use this reddish slide grease from Selmer, and the fact that they could move all these years later is testament to how good that stuff was.

Finally, it was time to try the valves. I used to use Al Cass Fast on those, and I always said it was the best back then. Once again, my choice turned out to be a wise one. Every valve was free, although there was a bit of what I'd call graininess to the sound. Even the Amado water keys were working smoothly. This old girl still surprises the hell out of me.

Now she certainly needs a lot of help before she can attend a ball again. Compression felt way off, and as I mentioned the valve clatter was much louder than normal. I also noticed that the first slide had a slightly oval shape at one end. And of course there was the red rot damage to the lead pipe but, all in all, it certainly could have been a lot worse.

I gave her a quick bath, removed a lot of the tarnish, and performed maintenance on everything. I took over 100 MB of images for Mr. Melk to get a better read on the situation. Here is how she looks before I, hopefully, send her off to be restored.

Today's reunion with my favorite trumpet was a good one.