John EricsonI’m calling this horn the “French” horn project, as the basic horn body is a French style piston horn, as seen below. An eBay find, this is what it looked like out of the box.
The bell is kind of mangled but there are some “good bones” for a nice natural horn.
This type of horn is exactly the type I would like to do this type of project with as well. If it were complete and by a well-known maker, I would not do it. In this case, it’s missing one piston entirely and there are no crooks. But of the basic tubing, most of it can be used, I just have to replace everything in the valve section area, and the bore is .440, perfect for a natural horn.
Look at those nice artistic braces. And the bell size is a good one for hand stopping. This will make a very workable natural horn in the French style. As I write this I have the stuck slides all out and I’m pondering options, I will need to completely rebuild the main slide area, most likely using the tubes from the third valve slide.
Who made it?
As of now it’s a mystery, and it may be one for a long time. The only marking I can find is this “H” stamped on the bell.
H? I don’t think it is Hawkes. It’s no major maker, and might have been a “stencil” horn of the time. As I work on it more maybe something else will appear.
I’m working now on making a good inventory of the natural horn parts I have on hand and what I need to obtain to at least make F, E, and Eb crooks and a D/C coupler for this and the Glassl bell horn. Will be and interesting project.
UPDATE: I’m about to take the horn apart and I figured out that the first slide on the main slide is smaller bore. Horn itself is .440 but that slide is probably .430, maybe .435. I’m hoping I can get .435 to work, as I have a brand new slide I can use. Will see how it all goes.