sneaky fixes

[bloke]

This is the single F horn ("Buescher"...obviously a stencil made by Conn - a de facto old Elkhart 14D) that an old kolij friend of mine (probably at-or-near 70-years-old) was given - by a neighbor, whose child was through with it - to use in beginner band (back in the mid-late 1960's).

By the time (as a beginner student) my friend received it, it was all smushed up, but he was proud to have it, as no one else in his school owned their own French horn.

He wants to donate it to a beginner or to a school, so he asked me to fix it up. I refused to run up his bill higher than $300, as doing more worth than that could have easily (even with all of this inflation, but due to so many people turning up their noses at perfectly good F horns) outrun it's monetary value.

Also, the valves rate a B+, so (again) I agreed to do this...
...so this should demonstrate that they rotors are viable enough for the instrument to be of use:

5-second video with sound: https://i.imgur.com/ZJnLiXk.mp4

I unsmushed it, re-soldered (I'm thinking...) six solder joints, and acid-cleaned it (FULL of lime, and the lime - surely - accounts for the rotor/casing wear down to "B+"), along with repairing the mouthpipe tube - which was nearly cracked in half about 1/4-inch past the 4-inch-long receiver/overpart.

Here's the repaired mouthpipe tube (with the arrow showing where it was formerly damaged:





...so how do you suppose I repaired it?
- no patching
- no silver brazing
- same mouthpipe

[arpthark]

Did you remove the receiver, trim it at the cracked bit, and re-attach the receiver a little further down the mouthpipe?

Not sure how far a horn mouthpipe goes into the receiver so that might not work.

[bloke]

Did you remove the receiver, trim it at the cracked bit, and re-attach the receiver a little further down the mouthpipe?

Not sure how far a horn mouthpipe goes into the receiver so that might not work.

That's close enough to a correct guess, if not completely correct.

- I cut the mouthpipe off right at the crack, rounded it, and squared off the end of it.
- I un-soldered the receiver end of the mouthpipe (with overpart) from the receiver brace.
- I cut the 1/4th inch of mouthpipe off past the end of the overpart (right at the very end of the overpart).
- I mounted the overpart (with receiver and last few inches of the mouthpipe within) on the lathe.
- I cut out (or - for sake of clarity - "drilled" out) about 5/64ths of an inch of mouthpipe from the cut end.
- I inserted the cut-off mouthpipe (mounted on the horn) into the back end of the receiver (butting up the drilled-out mouthpipe with the cut-off mouthpipe) and soldered everything back together.

[arpthark]

Did you remove the receiver, trim it at the cracked bit, and re-attach the receiver a little further down the mouthpipe?

Not sure how far a horn mouthpipe goes into the receiver so that might not work.

That's close enough to a correct guess, if not completely correct.

- I cut the mouthpipe off right at the crack, rounded it, and squared off the end of it.
- I un-soldered the receiver end of the mouthpipe (with overpart) from the receiver brace.
- I cut the 1/4th inch of mouthpipe off past the end of the overpart (right at the very end of the overpart).
- I mounted the overpart (with receiver and last few inches of the mouthpipe within) on the lathe.
- I cut out (or - for sake of clarity - "drilled" out) about 5/64ths of an inch of mouthpipe from the cut end.
- I inserted the cut-off mouthpipe (mounted on the horn) into the back end of the receiver (butting up the drilled-out mouthpipe with the cut-off mouthpipe) and soldered everything back together.

"overpart" = added to my vocabulary

[bloke]

"overpart" = added to my vocabulary

yeah...Almost ALL French horn receivers (as with a whole bunch of rotary tubas) are flared from the mouthpipe tubes themselves.

The long piece of cylindrical tubing only functions as protection/reinforcement, and nothing else...and the same goes for shorter versions of the same things (with the particular tubas, mentioned above).

I have changed "small shank" rotary tubas to "standard shank" rotary tubas, by removing the overpart (offering access to the flared end of the mouthpipe tube, annealing that end, and using some old mouthpiece (with a good shank) to open it from "small" to "standard"...but it requires a great deal of care (and some luck, as far as getting the overpart loose). Also, the overpart (usually) will need to be opened up perhaps .010" - .020") on the inside with a boring bar, prior to re-installation.

I've ALSO changed (same types of flared mouthpiece receivers) from "non-standard taper" (rattly mouthpiece) to "standard taper" but (usually) with a reamer, as most of them only needed reaming (at one end or the other) by a few thousandths...and - so far - I've never breached the wall of any of those.

TUNING - on the old Buescher/Conn F horn...
I'm still having to push the main slide in most of the way for A=440...and ONLY cutting of c. 1/2 inch of an instrument only has a 1/4 inch effect on the tuning slide position.

[bloke]

...and yes, where the mouthpipe was cracked it slightly travels uphill.

Also, there's a minor dent (body side) where the receiver brace is soldered on...

again: I limited what I did to $300, so some things had to - well - be limited.