...so a band director called me a few weeks ago to pick up a bunch of repairs (great).
After we arrived, he lets me know that blah-blah had already been there, but their prices were too high (so he called me).
One of the instruments is a Bach Stradivarius bass trombone (with a Bach 5G tenor trombone mouthpiece in the case - obviously a "marching band" instrument...HEY: If you ever wondered what's done with your tax dollars, it's stupid crap such as this - EVERY damn DAY).
The playing slide was trashed (smushed playing slide bow) - now: un-soldered/lathe-straightened/put back togther, the large side of the MAIN tuning slide was mangled (now: ironed out, straightened, round, fits - no sanding or buffing), and (because the "too high priced" place - apparently - didn't know how to realign a main tuning slide on a trombone) the SMALL side inside tube of the main slide had been CHOPPED OFF down to about 3/4" - long.
OK...It's all repaired now...I found a piece of tubing that size, replaced it, aligned it, made the playing slide "go" again and pushed a dent ball through the playing slide bow (and yeah - pushing hard as heck, it made my surgery tender spot hurt a bit), and etc.
I'm considering (apparently - again - people are choosing me for the wrong damn reason) raising my rate to $200/hr...(particularly now that money is worthless), is my skills level at least eleven times that of someone who doesn't even yet know how to turn on pizza dough machine...??, ...I'm pretty damn fast at doing this crap btw, and - hey... - I suspect other places are ALREADY charging that...no? ($200 in 2022 is the inflation-calculator equivalent of $50, when I started doing this mess in 1979.) I
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Has anyone else noticed this, or am I the only one...??
There's a so-so quality prolific brand/manufacturer (with prices only slightly lower than those of known-to-be-well-made instruments) that - in the past - featured harmony brass with pistons which would - after a year or two - turn black, but still work.
Recently, they've obviously addressed the problem: Their current-generation pistons look real purdy, but - well... - don't work...even when new...and (since they're made that way) it's hard as hell to get them to work reliably...as the work required is to "complete manufacturing them" rather than to - simply - "repair them".
...so shed a tear for poor ol' blokie, now...
