Making Mouthpieces

[thegreatrodinkis]

Hey, I was just wondering if anybody here might have some experience in building your own mouthpiece. I know that Alan Baer does it, and I know that there are a couple of other people out there that take part in mouthpiece building, but it seems like a complicated process and I was wondering if anybody could break it down a little bit. Thanks!

[Greenbenches]

I've made a couple out of stainless steel. 1 of them I play regularly and like it better than my Conn Helleberg. If you want I could talk on the phone to give you some tips and hints. I'll send you a number in a message.

[PaulMaybery]

A former student, Bill Milashius in White Bear Lake, Minnesota has been making custom Mps now for over 20 years. He is set up with digital scanning equipment and CNC milling machines. Not always easy for him to work you in, but when he has time, he is an ace.

By being able to scan an existing piece, you can have a point of departure on developing your own. Specs can be draw in a CAD program and downloaded to the milling machines.

Large Mps like tuba mps are somewhat easier in that the cutting tool can pass up into the backbone where as on a trumpet a cutter or ream needs to be made to shape the backbone.

Granted this is not making them yourself, but you can get basically whatever you want.

[thegreatrodinkis]

i can't remember where, but i saw an article about 3D printing mouthpieces. the fellow was able to print the bach mouthpieces and was hoping to customize. it was last winter sometime, i'll try to find that again. i'd wondered why noone had done that yet.

I've actually tried 3D printing a couple on the printer at my school. It just isn't quite the same as being made out of metal unfortunately. It would be nice if it could be that easy though!