Opinions on recent euphonium service

[DonO.]

I had a euphonium hanging around that I really wasn’t playing, and I had a nephew starting band several years ago, so I gave him the euphonium. He played it all through middle school and high school. Now in college, he has decided not to continue, so he gave it back to me. After about 7 years of wear and tear it was quite a different instrument from the mint horn I gave him! The edges of the bell were turned down, causing it to no longer fit in the case properly. Several minor dings and dents in the lower bout. And lots of scratches, which I didn’t really care about. Additionally, I am certain it hadn’t been cleaned in several years and some of the slides wouldn’t pull. I took it to largest instrument repair shop in our area. My goal was to get it back to as close to the way it was as I could without re-lacquering. I never really cared about wear and tear on the lacquer. It’s just paint after all. But I do hate dents. I asked them to roll out the bell to its original shape, do a chemical clean, and deal with the stuck slides. They also recommended a “valve job”, which didn’t involve any re-plating, didn’t need it, but I imagine it involved steaming and buffing. When I brought up the dents in the lower bout, the guy just smiled and said “we can’t really do anything about that”. I was in a hurry at the time I was dropping off the horn, and I didn’t want to argue, but I didn’t buy what he was saying. I think pretty much any dent can be taken out if one is willing to go to the trouble. I as happy with everything about the work they did, the valves and slides all work great, the horn plays well, the bell is back in shape. But the bottom bout dents vex me. Was I getting a straight story that they couldn’t do anything? It’s a VMI and doesn’t have any “wire” or guard down there, what passes for a guard is an elongated oval of sheet brass added over the tubing. Is it possible to take out dents of that nature without removing the lower bout, using a rod and ball, or must it be unsoldered and separated to remove those type of dents? Any info would be appreciated.

[DonO.]

Depends on how far into the bottom bow that dent is. The magnet and ball setup might work, but those have issues as well. Likely the bottom bow would need to be removed to get the dent out properly.

[DonO.]

I wonder why that was not presented to me as an option? I was clear that I was willing to pay. Getting the “we can’t do anything about it” response makes me feel like he thought I was an idiot.

[bloke]

As I’ve said many times; it depends on skill level.
If someone really can’t fix what’s been damaged, they’re going to add on some gimmick stuff.
(Just as one example of this, one thing I’ve often seen offered is “precision valve alignments“ - when the pistons and the casings themselves aren’t built with enough precision – as far as vertical spacing of ports is concerned - to realistically hope for anyone to precision align anything…ie. where compromise - realistically- is the order of the day.)
Maybe you think I’m trying to get you to send me stuff or bring me stuff (??). I’ve got a lot of stuff to do - and that’s not really what I’m attempting to accomplish, but the truth of the matter is that there just aren’t many people in the country that are all that good… and children now grow up in homes without toolsheds, and with about the only tools being a drawer with a few grocery-store-bought screwdrivers and pliers, and maybe a battery-charged lawnmower and weedeater. Even flat tires on bikes are repaired by “the bike shop“.

I just sold a local long time acquaintance (we were never close, but we played in the youth orchestra together) an old four valve silver Weril euphonium that’s been sitting around here forever. It didn’t look good, but it really looks good, now. It also didn’t work good, but it does now. The bottom bow was smashed in pretty darn badly, but it looks very nice and I didn’t even take off that piece of sheet metal that you’re talking about. After a while, I did decide that I was working too hard trying to make the bottom bow look really nice without taking the bow off the rest of the instrument, so I took off the bottom bow to work on it… It’s just two solder joints.
( viewtopic.php?t=3436 )
In summary, there are just too many dented up instruments - that American people want fixed - for the few people in the nation that do this type of work well. (not really smarting off, but trying to make a point…) There are a lot of people who can sit at a computer and type things while sitting in cubicles. If you wanted that done, you could easily find someone to do that.

[Three Valves]

I wonder why that was not presented to me as an option? I was clear that I was willing to pay. Getting the “we can’t do anything about it” response makes me feel like he thought I was an idiot.

They may be giving you an honest self assessment of their skills.

[DonO.]

As I suspected gentlemen. It seems funny though that they say they couldn’t do anything about it when they seemed to do a good job on the bell. They seem to know how to take out dents. They offer complete overhauls where they claim to take out every dent then re-lacquer. But I was quoted $1750 for that, and that exceeds the value of the horn. I suspect they just didn’t want to bother with just taking out dents (for a little money) if I wasn’t going to go for the overhaul (for big bucks). Bloke, if Memphis wasn’t so damn far away, I would definitely take it to you!

[matt g]

Some of this might be clientele. One person might not care about burnt lacquer from a bow being removed and mean it, while another might say the same thing and refuse to pay based on minor cosmetics.

[bloke]

If you don’t at least catch a whiff of lacquer, it’s probably not an “overhaul shop”, and – though “overhaul shops“ are becoming extinct - most places that repair stuff send off “overhaul” jobs.

Name-dropping can easily sound like bragging, and avoiding the names can also sound like bragging as well as sound like bullshitting…yet I’m going to pursue the latter anyway:

A few months ago, a well-known player brought some of his stuff from about 12 hours away and brought another well-known player’s stuff as well. We put him up while working on the instruments that were brought - as is our custom. The other well-known player expressed great appreciation that we straightened his bad boo-boo out (as he had actually fallen down with a very expensive instrument) without scratching it up and without taking it apart. There also was a very handsome instrument that a third person owned. That instrument was made in California in the 20th century, and I wasn’t able to make that thing do any better than it was already doing.

bloke “Someone might be able to coax me into re-lacquering their trumpet or trombone (and doing this to any saxophone - that might be worth doing it to - is considered taboo), but I’m not an ‘overhaul shop’. If larger things are occasionally completely refinished, those are things that we own and are either keeping or selling.”

burned lacquer:
Some lacquer is going to burn immediately, but other lacquer can be dealt with - and end up only a little bit darker than it was before.
When I am forced to pull bows off of instruments that have pretty good-looking lacquer, I have Mrs. bloke running the torch around one side while I’m running another torch around the other - so that one person doesn’t have to try to juggle two plates at once. We get our sides heated up as quickly as we can, and pull those bows off before ruining pretty good looking lacquer. This effective tack doesn’t require an extraordinary amount of skill, nor intelligence.

[Doc]

This effective tack doesn’t require an extraordinary amount of skill, nor intelligence.

But it requires Mrs. Bloke, and there ain't many like her to go around.