week 11

 The tone hole levelers that we made a long time ago, so shiny and pretty. But Lucas wants them absolutely flat, so we had to sandpaper them in a figure 8 motion on our superflat anvil.

My methods clarinet and some of the tools I was using to fix the keys. Yes that is a clothes pin taken apart. We put it under a key before hitting it with a hammer to protect it.

That key was really hard to get right. First it tipped backwards and I fixed that by putting half a clothes pin under the arm of the key, and hitting the tip with a canvas hammer. Then, because I didn't hit it with the right angle it started to tip to the left, and I fixed that by grabbing my protected knipex pliers (parallel jaw pliers) and using it gently on the arm to bend it to the right position.

Jeff here (guy to the far left) needed a inner tube for a trumpet he's working on. The tube was made with a seam because that's what they did before 1930ish and the owner wanted the trumpet restored originally. So, they made a brass piece into a tube, soldered the middle, and then squeezed said tube through this machine to make it the right thickness and right bore size.

That happens in our school. Greg (teacher to the far right) was rolling the huge instrument in the picture (sousaphone?) to class and Billy (the huge marine guy playing the instrument) decided that he needed to play it in the middle of the hallway. After all, there is sheet music on the walls!

Swedging. It's just squeezing the key so it fits the hinge rod inside better. What it does too is get rid of end play that exists between the posts, as in, you can move the whole thing around and it makes the pads not fit very well over the tone holes. I'm fixing the f# ring key in this picture. The swedging has to be perfect, the hinge rod has to be inside so we don't accidentally crush it, and the pressure has to be the same around the key.

More swedging. I was showing that you have to swedge all around the tube evenly.

Looking for play in the key. I wedge it sideways with my fingers to see if it wiggles. If so, it needs to be swedged.