Finally Some More Progress

 Hello we finally have some progress on the old horns, so I'll quickly go through everything we got done this week.

Pool Horn:

I corrected most of the bend in the bell of the pool horn using a drumstick down the leadpipe and some elbow grease. It still has a tiny way to go but it is almost straight again! The rest of the horn nothing notable happened, just more oil and heat, trying to get the slides out.

Augu:

Pierce had a fun escapade into the world of silver soldering with patching a crack at the end of the lead pipe where the tuning slide would go in. It only took him three tries to get it right! The first time the inside of the lead pipe flooded with solder and the second time was just a bad job. As you can tell from the picture the solder job still needs to be sanded down a little bit but it is much better than it was.

Sudre:

We ordered some lapping compound and other stuff from Ferrees tools, Pierce used the lapping compound to work on the valves of the sudre and they work much better now. Just needed to be careful not to do too much lapping.

If you would like to see any before pictures of these horns they're all available under the photo gallery tab as well as under the individual horns.

Short Progress Update

 Hello, so unfortunately the progress from last update to this one is quite a bit less. Most of the things that are stuck still haven't moved so it's mostly just a waiting game applying oil and heat twice a day to try to get things loose. We had a shipment of tools come in today which should help us a lot with this. I guess I'll do a quick synopsis of what we did on each.

Pool Horn:

Nothing to see here really, I took off the lyre holder but that's about it.

Saxonor:

This is the only one that actually has something to talk about. I decided to take off the lead pipe and I am very glad I did as I uncovered the most bent tuning slide pipe I have ever seen. Very glad I didn't keep trying with oil on that part. The image is from after I already straightened it a little bit, the entire bottom half was flat.

Sudre, Augu & Huttl:

There hasn't been any progress on these horns as we were waiting on the tools from Ferrees to arrive before we could do anything meaningful on them as they are further along in their progress. There should be some significant progress this week with the tools now so expect a bigger update next Monday.

Prep Work

Hello another update on the horns, both Pierce and I gave them all a vinegar bath to remove the tarnish. Every horn looks majorly different after that and much better. The pool horn and the Augu had pretty amazing transformations. A fair warning don't do this on your personal horn we only did it here because these horns were very tarnished. 

We also both had a fun venture into soldering, we're not very good yet. Pierce had an old herald trumpet which he used to practice a little bit, I just used an old table leg this really helped us figure out how to take things apart. A quick update and some pictures for each of the horns.

Pool horn:

I removed the bell and have been attempting to remove the rest of the slides they unfortunately need more time and oil. The process is to apply oil and heat using the propane torch to coerce the oil into the tubes. Unfortunately these slides are very stuck so this process takes quite a bit of time it could take up to another week before these slides free up.

Saxonor:

The saxonor is being a pain in the butt, nothing wants to move which is similar to the pool horn . The end cap on the second valve came off... don't know what to do about that. Also as I was removing excess solder around the tuning slide I discovered a massive hole, it looks like someone tried to reconstruct the slide using solder. It will need  to be replaced. On the plus side it looks quite a bit cleaner but the transformation from the vinegar bath isn't very big. Also a positive is that I managed to straighten the third valve slide which was quite bent.

Sudre:

We discovered a little bit of historical context for this horn, the horn was likely made by Francois Sudre (1844-1912). Sudre bought out a company named Halary between 1873-1875 which was known for instrument making in France. Sudre is most known for patenting the Sudrophone although not a very popular instrument anyway. So from this information we can deduce that the Horn was likely made between 1873 and 1912 making this horn well over 100 years old. There is also a stamp with a location on it which was Sudre's shop, 17ave Trudaine Paris. If you're interested you can see the shop where it was made on google street view which is really cool, the building is now occupied by a real estate agency and a yoga studio. Pierce mostly just cleaned this horn but he also managed to get the slides free and all the valves. 

Augu:

The Augu underwent an amazing transformation, we both thought the horn was raw brass. But after the vinegar bath all the tarnish came off and we discovered it is silver plated! Pierce removed the lead pipe and corrected the bend by the crack. He removed all of the braces that would have been attached to the lead pipe as well as the finger ring.

Huttl:

We're not going to be updating on the Huttl yet because we haven't started work on it. 

Thanks for reading there will another update next week, hopefully more progress.

An Overview of Each of the Horns

     Hello everyone! For those of you who don't already know, Pierce and I have started a project in which we are going to attempt to restore some old horns to a much better quality. This will be a fun project for us to take on in order to learn more about instrument repair and restoration as well as hopefully make some cool looking horns once we're done. We found these horns on eBay one day while we were just looking around and decided that they would be a lot of fun to restore. In this blog we will dive in detail for how we are restoring them as well as give some progress updates as we go. 

   The Horns

    The horns we bought came from France (in under a week!) in pretty rough condition. There are 5 of them, two Bb's, two Bb-C convertibles, and one C. I'm going to go over what we know about the horns as well as their damage. Due to covid-19 Pierce and I cannot meet up to work on the horns so I currently have two of them and Pierce has the other three, at least for now this is how the situation will be. Pierce took some lovely pictures of all of the instruments so we can post some great before pictures. We have a ton more pictures than are posted on here, if you want to look at them let me know and I can send them your way.

Pool Horn

The pool horn, as we so lovingly call it is in very rough shape it looks like somebody left it in a pool for about 3 months. It's one of the Bb horns and we don't know what model the horn is however there is a serial number so we might be able to trace something off of that. 

As you can see the bell is quite warped and the lead pipe is broken off and half stuck in the tuning slide, the rest of the slides are stuck. However the valves do work which is a huge plus for a horn in this condition. There is some beautiful engraving on the bell but it is very difficult to see due to all of the tarnish. There are a large number of dents in the bell section including a somewhat crumpled bell rim.

Saxonor Paris

The Saxonor Paris is one of the nicer looking horns other than all of the problems. Unlike the pool horn it is not completely tarnished, but unfortunately only one of the valves moves. Hopefully the rest of them come out easily and do not need too much repair. 

The damage on this instrument is also fairly extensive, there is a massive hole in the second valve slide which will likely need to be replaced. All of the buttons are missing, and the tuning slide and first valve slide are stuck as well as the second and third valve. However there are far fewer dents on this horn than the pool horn and the finish is in much better condition. Interestingly the inside of the bell and the stamp appear to have a silver finish whereas the rest of the horn is gold, in some spots it almost looks brushed on.

F. Sudre Paris

The Sudre is the first of the Bb-C convertibles and is pretty nasty looking but nearly functional, the finish is quite spotted so it will likely need to be stripped and possibly redone. However a lot of it appears to be just tarnish which should come off easily.

The first thing to notice is that the lead pipe is missing, it will need to be replaced entirely. A lot of the damage on this horn is cosmetic, however all of the slides are stuck as well as the first valve. This horn will be a lot of work! The two valves that have come out are in very good condition which is amazing to see.

Louis Augu

The Louis Augu is another Bb-C convertible and it can fully come apart and is not missing any parts. Nearly all of the damage is cosmetic which is fantastic, this horn is nearly playable, it just needs some new springs and felts.

Nearly all of the damage on this horn is cosmetic except for the lead pipe which has a giant gash in the side of it. We've decided we are going to attempt to silver solder it but if that doesn't work then this horn will also need a new lead pipe. The valves are in slightly less good condition than the Sudre but still very workable. The finish on the instrument is quite spotty and tarnished again hopefully that can be easily cleaned up.

Huttl

The Huttl is the only C trumpet of the five and is one of the more interesting horns. It also can fully come apart which is amazing. We decided that we are going to wait and work on the Huttl together because it looks like a very interesting horn and we want some experience before tackling it.

One of the things worth noting about it is that the second slide is missing so that will need to be replaced. It is probably the most tarnished of the five except maybe the pool horn. However the slides and valves are all in astounding condition. There are quite a few dents in them though which shouldn't be too difficult to get out.

You will notice also that the springs are missing, this is why the valves are pressed down. Not because they are stuck. The finish around the engraving is interesting because it is almost white. We are not sure whether this horn is silver or lacquered either way it will need something done to it. The tuning slide is also not right, it falls out very easily so it will need some repairs or replacement.

Those are the five horns that we bought, this should be an interesting and quite challenging project for us to undertake. We hope you are as excited as we are about restoring these old horns to a higher quality. I will try to update this every week or so, if you would like to receive an email whenever they get posted you can signup on the sidebar.

-Troy and Pierce