Concerning Garlands

[imperialbari]

A real garland of a separate sheet of metal?

Not a French rim, which looks like a narrow garland, but which really is the rim bent back over itself? This makes gussets understand able, as the material still needs some thickness.

Klaus

[corbasse]

A real garland of a separate sheet of metal?

Yes.

A garland was the standard finishing method of early brasses before the industrial revolution. Sheets of brass were cut in a Y shape, folded, brazed and hammered over a mandrel, then a garland was fitted tightly (not soldered!) over the edge of the bell. From the industrial revolution onwards they started spinning the folded sheets on the mandrel instead of hammering them. Spinning the bell from a flat sheet as is normal now is a much later development still.

Gussets were added not only to prevent too much stretching of the edge during the hammering (a lot of fine baroque instruments have virtually the same thickness throughout the whole of the bell), but also because the brass sheets produced at the time were in the form of strips, not always wide enough to get the circumference needed for a larger bell.

In horn building this ancient method continued to be used for a long time, not surprisingly especially in those parts where the natural horn was still going strong despite the invention and widespread use of the valve.

An entertaining book in this respect is "The Art Of the Trumpet Maker" by Robert Barclay. It gives a good overview of brass instrument production in the late renaissance and baroque. It also has lots of photos and hands-on instructions for the budding DIY natural trumpet builder

[J.c. Sherman]

A real garland of a separate sheet of metal?

Yes.

A garland was the standard finishing method of early brasses before the industrial revolution. Sheets of brass were cut in a Y shape, folded, brazed and hammered over a mandrel, then a garland was fitted tightly (not soldered!) over the edge of the bell. From the industrial revolution onwards they started spinning the folded sheets on the mandrel instead of hammering them. Spinning the bell from a flat sheet as is normal now is a much later development still.

Gussets were added not only to prevent too much stretching of the edge during the hammering (a lot of fine baroque instruments have virtually the same thickness throughout the whole of the bell), but also because the brass sheets produced at the time were in the form of strips, not always wide enough to get the circumference needed for a larger bell.

In horn building this ancient method continued to be used for a long time, not surprisingly especially in those parts where the natural horn was still going strong despite the invention and widespread use of the valve.

An entertaining book in this respect is "The Art Of the Trumpet Maker" by Robert Barclay. It gives a good overview of brass instrument production in the late renaissance and baroque. It also has lots of photos and hands-on instructions for the budding DIY natural trumpet builder

Exactly right on all counts. And the Barclay is a must-read for anyone with a modicum of interest in the trade or in many contemporary fabrication and repair techniques.

I'll also heartily recommend his and RIch Seriphinoff's (sp?) trumpet making workshop; you'll never work harder for greater reward!

Also, for a more full definition of bell rims, see: http://orgs.usd.edu/nmm/UtleyPages/Utle ... .html#rims" target="_blank

J.c.S.