I worked on my project trumpet, and I finished my mouth pipe project this afternoon.  I soldered my S braces, and then wheel and hand buffed off the tinning at my feed spots.  It went smoothly today!  I didn't have anything fall apart, and I didn't make any big messes!  Tomorrow I will start dent work on my project trumpet, so keep an eye on my project trumpet page for updates!

I got a lot done today.  I finished my slide tool by drilling a hole in it, and threading it to fit the screw we were given.  Then I sanded the screw down so it would go all of the way in.

I finished soldering my mouth pipe to casing brace, and fixed the mouth pipe to bell brace that I had unsoldered.  It turned out all right, and it was much less frustrating than it was on Friday.  I also fitted the S braces for my mouth pipe project so I can solder those on tomorrow.   

I also unstuck the main tuning slide on my project trumpet today.  Photos and other information on that can be found on my "Project Trumpet" page.  You can see my finished slide tube tool in my "Hand Crafted Tools" page.

On Fridays, sometimes we do projects that aren't directly related to anything we are working on, just for a break.  I didn't get to finish my soldering project like I had hoped because we worked on the lathe all day.  We started making another tool.  We had to form a 1 1/2 inch long piece of brass with a diameter of exactly .458" out of a 1/2 inch round piece of brass.  On Monday we will finish by drilling a 1" deep hole in one side, and threading it.

Today was a very frustrating day.  I worked on soldering a new mouth pipe to a trumpet.  My casing to mouth pipe brace went on beautifully, but in the process my casing to bell brace came loose.  I cleared the excess solder, and it was still aligned well so I decided to reattach it before continuing to install my mouth pipe.  When I finished reattaching the casing to bell brace, I noticed that my first casing to mouth pipe brace had shifted.  Needless to say, I pretty much went through this whole process again, unsoldering one side as I soldered the other.  By the time the day was over, neither brace was attached, and I had already solder the casing to mouth pipe brace three time and the casing to bell brace twice.  Tomorrow John (John Huth, my instructor) is going to help me.  We are going to solder the mouth pipe on completely before soldering the casing to bell brace.  He thinks that if we lay the trumpet on the mouth pipe while soldering the bell brace it will be less likely to shift out of place.

My first mouth pipe to casing brace solder

My detached casing to bell brace

This is what happened while I reattached the casing to bell brace

I just started BIR school about a month ago.  So far, I have been working with brass instruments, mainly the trumpet.  I have learned a lot about taking out dents, and buffing brass instruments.  I learned how to port and chem flush brass instruments as well.  We have made many tools thus far as.  Tomorrow I will post pictures of the tools that we have made.  I am currently working on a solder project as well.  Pictures of that are coming too!