John EricsonAs mentioned in a prior post, I have four main projects underway to work on until the hot weather closes my garage shop. Current progress has mostly been on the “French” project.
Since the first post on this horn I’ve annealed part of the bell tail, filled what I could of the bell tail and the first branch with Cerrobend, and then adjusted the bend of both parts so that they lay properly together.
Then I got to the next steps, the tuning slide.
This first photo shows the parts all ready to go. The actual slides are from the donor horn 3rd valve slide, the insert piece and the outer piece are from the donor horn 2nd valve slide, and the brace and bow are from the original main slide.
(The insert piece has to be there to maintain the same bore through the entire slide).
Looking at the bow closely, you will see it has some only partially repaired damage. I did get a .440 dent ball through the entire bow, but that is as far as I dared do. One end was smaller (about .430) to begin with, and then I could see a possible hint of a crack opening up in the middle and for sure a split on the (former) small end. That was a far as I could safely go with dent work. Visually it will have a bit of “character,” but playing wise it should make no difference. The bore in the slide tubes is just over .440, and I suspect the bore in the bow is closer to .445. Bottom line is .005″ won’t make or break this horn.
The assembly order was first the slide tube assembly was soldered and cleaned up. One advantage I had was the brace was already exactly the correct size. So I was able to set it all up to solder on a scrap of granite. With a “weight” holding it square and flat.
After soldering this is what I have.
Again, you can see the little dents in the bow. Maybe someday somebody else can fix that with a rare earth magnet setup. But for me it will have to be good enough.
The body with more parts set up in temporary position may be seen below! It’s taking shape and I think will be a really nice horn.
You can’t see it in the photo and it’s not real obvious in real life either, but there is a bit of a “warp” to the body overall, relating to prior damage.
The bell brace is only the second project I’ve ever marked with a “serial number.” This horn is stamped JE426, for me and April of ’26.
The next big (and I mean big) challenge will be bending the tube that runs from the crook to the main slide. It will have bends in multiple directions and will be the most complicated bend I’ve ever attempted. I’ll probably wait a few days to do that, but when that is done it won’t be long at all until the horn body is complete.