seemingly impossible challenges become self-amusement
Posted: Wed Aug 09, 2023 5:01 pm
I've been working on (two or three left to go - hopefully, I'm past the worst) roughly a dozen (not only professional and close-to-professional grade trombones, but also) silver plated and F-attachment instruments for a school. These are all taken outdoors, and several of their slides were "creamed".
It should go without saying that I can - fairly quickly/easily - fix all the junk wrong with their bell sections (including realignment main tuning slides - after un-smashing their bows, straightening out bells, replacing missing thumb linkage parts, etc.), but - regarding the playing slides - since the tubes are silver plated, they're all going right back out to do more outdoor war, these instruments are made in the USA, the manufacturer - these days, supplying parts - is as slow as molasses (going to remain in business...??), I've been entertaining myself repairing playing slide tubes that - under normal circumstances - I would be throwing in the trash (particularly if repairing for pros), and - actually - these slides are turning out so very "good enough" that some of them are actually prompting me (upon completion) to giggle, just a little bit.
I'm employing some crazy techniques (and some of my techniques aren't used by very many - if any - others anyway) that have never occurred to me before to try, and several of them are proving to be 95%-or-better successful. One thing - that I tried...and it worked, employed using a vice (and not just to support a repair tool).
It should go without saying that I can - fairly quickly/easily - fix all the junk wrong with their bell sections (including realignment main tuning slides - after un-smashing their bows, straightening out bells, replacing missing thumb linkage parts, etc.), but - regarding the playing slides - since the tubes are silver plated, they're all going right back out to do more outdoor war, these instruments are made in the USA, the manufacturer - these days, supplying parts - is as slow as molasses (going to remain in business...??), I've been entertaining myself repairing playing slide tubes that - under normal circumstances - I would be throwing in the trash (particularly if repairing for pros), and - actually - these slides are turning out so very "good enough" that some of them are actually prompting me (upon completion) to giggle, just a little bit.
I'm employing some crazy techniques (and some of my techniques aren't used by very many - if any - others anyway) that have never occurred to me before to try, and several of them are proving to be 95%-or-better successful. One thing - that I tried...and it worked, employed using a vice (and not just to support a repair tool).