My original horn conversion project was turning a vintage concert mellophone into a rather nice natural horn, a Doctoral project done under the guidance of natural horn maker Richard Seraphinoff. That horn may be seen here.

I had in mind to do another of these, and eventually spotted a vintage mellophone with some promise on eBay. It was a Conn from the 1930s that had been converted into a lamp! Still, even in the listing I could see it had a nice, “hand hammered” bell with a seam to the edge, it was not a student model instrument but from a better level of construction. Even if it had several holes to patch.

Consulting with Rick, he had several natural horn leadpipes that had been made with a significant flaw, to the extent that he was not going to use them, but for my purposes, they were fine. With those in hand and a few other key parts from my parts supply, I launched into making this horn. The photos below (originally posted on Instagram) tell the story beyond.

The horn has a nice bell for hand-stopping. Crooks are for F and E, with a 1/2 step coupler for Eb and D.

Two final footnotes. One is that I had to alter the horn further after the last photo — the main slide was too long in relation to the crooks I made. The other is that after making it I could only test it a bit before loaning it to a student! I had five students taking natural horn lessons this spring. I look forward to playing this horn more in the summer.