Interesting Repair Project

[Dan Schultz]

You repair guys are going to appreciate this one! I was contacted last week by one of the local symphonies about doing some repair work on their 'instrument petting zoo'. This is by far the most interesting job I've undertaken. I picked up the instruments today... consisting of: an old White bell-front tuba with a wrong 3rd piston, three F horns with mangled leadpipes, two trumpets with most of the braces broken, two cornets with similar problems, two flutes with a few keys missing, two clarinets with misc pad problems, a bari sax with the wrong neck and a missing trill key, a contrabass clarinet, three trombones with bad slides, and a baritone with all the braces broken and the leadpipe twisted. The criteria was simple.... all the horns had to 'make a noise' fairly consistant to the natural timbre of the instrument and have no loose parts or sharp edges that could injure a child. Just solder 'em back together and make 'em toot. No need to pull the slides or even check them for intonation problems. These instruments are used to introduce small children to the arts and will never be played other than just to make 'em toot. This project was so much fun that I'm not even going to charge them other than to ask for a mention in the program. Had everything going in about four hours. Not perfect.... but making noise.

[andrew the tuba player]

wow. I wish i was that good.

[andrew the tuba player]

yeah, contras are pretty sweet..but, i have no room...so, yeah you wouldnt have to worry about me buying it first

[trseaman]

Very cool program for youngsters!!!

Tim

[SplatterTone]

Tell them that the next time they clean the instruments, they are supposed to be hung up to dry rather than thrown into a clothes dryer.