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I would love to hear about techniques for working with brass and copper. I want to make some fancy things for the trumpets I customize, and right now it is limited to my dremel ability and my (not so hot) lathe ability.
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Jul 31, 2008 01:40
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TantricPenguin posted:One last thing, Brekelefuw: if you give us some idea of exactly what you are wanting to add, I'm sure we can throw some ideas on technique your way. As a music nerd myself (alto, tenor and bari sax for 8 years) you have my interests piqued indeed. Right now the thing I want to do is be able to make nice looking finger rings, braces in sheet and rod form, and any other cosmetic accents I can think of. To make rings right now I just take brass rod stock and use a bending jig to get it to the radius I want, but my shop doesn't have very many radii to choose from so I end up getting it close and then using a pin guage and a vise with soft jaws to work the rod to the final shape. It is pretty sketchy and time consuming to do. I also noticed on some very high end trumpets, the maker puts silver highlights on the edges of his brass sheet braces. I have been brainstorming how to do this cheaply and easily without having to buy/make a plating machine and I think doing some very fancy solder tinning where I tin a design on the brass, but I don't know how to control the solder so it doesn't just flow everywhere. Maybe it is too crazy an idea...
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Aug 6, 2008 00:49
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dv6speed posted:Solder will only flow to clean fluxed metal. So, if you can do a really careful job with your flux application, perhaps using tape or something as a mask, it might be crazy enough to work. In fact, leaving masking tape on the metal while soldering, will make the tape catch fire, but should do a fine job of preventing solder flow to the parts you don't want. I thought of using tape, but I also thought that once it set on fire it might not block the solder from flowing a bit. I used tape to create a line when I was scratch brushing the bell of my trumpet. It worked pretty well as long as I was super careful because the brass wire of the brush tears the tape. A plating machine isn't hard to make, but getting the chemicals and figuring out how to plate only certain parts of a piece is more hassle than it is worth to me right now.
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Aug 6, 2008 02:08
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SmokeyXIII posted:I don't know if we care about this in this thread but today I went to Syncrude, which is a different plant than the one I work at, and we checked out all the old mining equipment. I stood in the shovel. It's huge but compared to the new ones its so tiny. They've got all kinds of huge equipment up there, it was just so amazing to see the gigantic metal monsters up so close. Pretty neato! You work at Syncrude? I go to Keyano College in Fort McMisery. I hate it up there, but it is the only place in canada for my program.
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Aug 29, 2008 21:21
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This is kind of an off topic question but, me and my friend are making drums out of propane tanks and we can't get the gasket off. We have tried a huge wrench and hammers, as well as LOTS of fire from acetylene torches. Any suggestions? I might take it t the millwright shop at school and see if any of the welding students want to get them off for me. Don't worry, the tanks were bought brand new and never used. Here is what we want to make: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpMS15kJyOY Amazing eh?
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Sep 5, 2008 21:21
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dv6speed posted:Brekelefuw, I will get some korosion kracker and let that soak in. I sure hope they are brand new....the store said they were and they had stickers on them saying that. I guess I won't be able to post anymore if they aren't new...
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Sep 6, 2008 17:38
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In my Instrument Repair class we have O/A but people rarely use it because it is quicker to just go under our benches and use the Acetylene tanks instead of going and getting a hose and tip and then walking over to the wall to turn the oxygen and gas feed on. Plus the O/A handles are much bigger than the Acetylene torch handles which makes it more tricky to get around tight places when soldering on instruments. Some times I will not even bother with Acetylene and just use a Butane hand torch from the hardware store. It is hard to control the heat with those ones though...
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Sep 13, 2008 17:19
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The mini milling machines and lathes are good for hobbyists who fabricated small one off things, but they aren't as accurate as a big lathe. In my instrument repair class we have the Sherline milling machine and lathe, as well as a full sized milling machine and lathe. I much prefer the larger one unless I am making small things that don't have to be accurate to the .0005
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Oct 9, 2008 05:30
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I broke two 1x56 taps in a piece of brass last week. I used a dental pick to slowly work it out. A bit different than polycarbonate though...
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Oct 9, 2008 08:06
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Slung Blade posted:Day 3, course complete: Wow that looks amazing. Does anyone have experience bending tubing? I am going to be bending a brass trumpet bell and I have four options that I know of. 1. lead 2. Pitch 3. Soapy water 4. A gun casting low temp metal called cerrosafe http://www.brownells.com/aspx/NS/store/productdetail.aspx?p=384&st=cerro&s Anyone have any tips? I annealed the bell already and buffed it up all pretty, and I know that I have to do it slowly so I don't wrinkle it. As I bend it I will be hammering down any wrinkles that appear. The bend I want to do isn't very drastic, but I don't want to mess it up.
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Oct 20, 2008 21:21
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SmokeyXIII posted:
Are you doing this stuff in Fort Mac? or in Edmonton.
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Oct 21, 2008 05:00
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kapalama posted:Small grinding questions: Remember that if you grind aluminum and then steel it is possible to create an explosion. I believe the heat gets under the aluminum which gets covered by steel shavings causing pressure to build up or something. We learned it in class when we were doing millwrighting.
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Nov 29, 2008 18:36
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Slung Blade posted:Because it would burn as soon as I touched a red hot iron bar to it. That makes it exciting. We use this oil called corrosion cracker to remove a part of a trombone slide that is usually pretty much welded to the trombone because it collects all the moisture and crap people spit into their horns. When we remove the part, we have to heat the tube up to get the solder to flow and put some oil in there to bust up all the crud. The person removing the tube with you gets tube pulling pliers and a rawhide hammer and goes to town smacking the pliers to get the tube out while you use acetylene to heat it, and when it finally comes out the oil ignites in a big green fireball. It is awesome every time.
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Mar 16, 2009 21:21
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SmokeyXIII posted:Acetylene welding is effectively a dead technology. However, as a machinist you'll find yourself needing to repair parts that have been eroded down to a size smaller than spec, more often than not that will have to be built up with SMAW. It's great for high deposition and the only way that it's dirty is if you lack the manual skill to produce a clean weld. Also it's cheap, all you need is rods. I assure you that SMAW would be a useful skill to have for a person pursuing that line of work. But don't get me wrong, learning to TIG and MIG are going to be great assets, and you will use them a lot. I'm just saying don't under estimate how much SMAW is used in shops, as well as field. Wow. All I hear up here these days is how all the companies are canceling their projects and laying off people. Syncrude even backed out of the mine ops program at Keyano. That is a big deal since they are 1/3 of the hiring companies at the school.
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Mar 21, 2009 08:01
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In the instrument repair field we take old files and grind the teeth down and then polish them until they are super smooth. Then we can use them to burnish tubing back into round, or whatever shape the metal is.
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Mar 30, 2009 22:01
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One Legged Ninja posted:I've heard of putting dull files in a bucket of vinegar, or some other diluted acid, and letting them sit for a while. I don't remember which acid, though. Phosphoric, maybe. For a couple bucks for a jug of vinegar, it can't hurt to try, and it's not as if it's you don't have enough to experiment with. A common acid that used to be used to clean instruments was miriatic (sp) acid. The industry stopped using it when ultrasonic cleaners became cheaper. The acid has cyanide in it or something. Maybe that is the acid.
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Mar 31, 2009 04:56
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Audiot posted:Alright, it's about time I made an appearance here. I have way to many projects going on, but I'll put up some progress shots and hopefully this will get me to keep working. I'm about halfway through a Stuart Victoria engine. Which Sherline do you have? I am going to get the milling machine and lathe someday when I have some extra cash. Did you go CNC or manual?
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May 13, 2009 01:29
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Powdered Toast Man posted:Howdy metalheads! I repair musical instruments for a living (specifically brass ones) and I have annealed a few times. Work the torch back and forth over a square in or so and watch it rainbow and then glow. you want to move to the next area you want to anneal when it starts to glow. It might turn black from crud that is on the brass or carbon particles from your torch, but that can be cleaned off with chemicals. The key to annealing is even heat and making sure you get it all. Also, don't cool the brass. Put it in some sand or just let it sit until it gets back to room temperature. If you try to cool it with water or oil you will make it brittle. You shouldn't have to anneal at first though, because the brass sheet shouldn't be work hardened yet.
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May 22, 2009 00:20
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Here is a link to a thread on a trumpet site about the trumpet that I rebuilt today. http://www.trumpetmaster.com/vb/f131/what-i-did-my-sunday-afternoon-46564.html#post432898 I will be posting a very detailed report about the trombone I am doing next. It was run over by a car!
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May 24, 2009 21:35
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I was at an antique show this weekend and one vendor was selling bellows that were about 8 feet long and 5 feet wide. He was asking about $2000 for it. I am sure you could have blown the clothes off someone with it...it was huge
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May 28, 2009 00:03
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ExtremeODD posted:Well a while back in my spare time I hammered out a ring for the wifey out of a golden dollar, well obviously its not gold inside and the ring is unwearable due to the copper staining. In the instrument world, horns that are gold plated get flash copper plated, then silver plated, and THEN a 2.5 micron thickness of 24k gold is put on.
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Jun 1, 2009 02:42
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The pattern on that knife is beautiful.
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Jun 30, 2009 23:58
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Wow! that looks amazing. If I had a big oak desk I would love to put that on it.
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Aug 11, 2009 00:19
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http://toronto.en.craigslist.ca/drh/tls/1325218184.html This lathe is for sale and I really want it. Alas, I have to buy a suit because I have shrunk and my suit did not shrink with me.
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Aug 16, 2009 15:04
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Screw the chair. Tell me about copper ore.
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Aug 22, 2009 16:11
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Slung Blade posted:
My next 'non-work' project was going to be a christmas present for my little brother. I was going to turn him a nice shifter knob for his Miata, but it turns out he just bought one. Now I have to find something else to do.
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Sep 22, 2009 00:01
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Audiot posted:I made all the parts on a Sherline mill and lathe. I am thinking of trying to get a line of credit or loan from the bank for tools so I can start doing some work on the side, and I REALLY want a sherline cnc mill and lathe. Is yours CNC?
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Oct 28, 2009 02:06
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Hey guys, I am looking to get some pliers for x-mas, but I can't remember the real name of the type I need. One side of the jaws is convex and the other concave. I think they are a kind of ring bending plier, but I'm not sure. The ones I have used before were made by Knipex (but I can't find them on their site) and the length of the jaws was about 1.5 inches. I need to get two pairs of them for bending trumpet braces. Gripping them with regular duckbills can scratch the brass, and round nose don't grip the parts well. I can also post some pics of the trombone I am rebuilding for my friend. (it got run over by a car,) or of a trumpet I am customizing right now. My progress on the trumpet is detailed here : http://www.trumpetmaster.com/vb/f139/custom-trumpet-project-2-5-a-49747.html The site doesn't load sometimes though. I think their server gets overloaded.
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Nov 2, 2009 05:30
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I finally found the name of the pliers I want. I checked everywhere BUT the instrument repair tool companies... http://www.musicmedic.com/catalog/products/tool-pl103.html This is them, although I don't use them for springs.
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Nov 5, 2009 03:58
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Can one of you guys explain a bit about what to look at in those welding pictures? I know nothing about it, but it is interesting. To me those pictures look like any other weld I have ever seen. Where have they gone wrong?
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Nov 5, 2009 13:46
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At work today I didn't have the part I needed to replace on a euphonium, so I took some brass rod stock and some brass sheet and shaped it and then brazed them together to make a brace. It has been a long time since I last brazed. It felt good to get out the soldering jig, borax and silver solder. It felt even better when I put on my largest torch tip and had a nice 6 inch blue flame roaring out of it. The part turned out ok. I had to file down a small blob of solder that wouldn't flow where I wanted it, but after cleanup and buffing it looked nice. Hopefully I get to do that more often. I have been doing so much soldering lately. I think I am finally getting the hang of it. Before, I would sometimes do great solders with nice fitted joints and no cleanup, and other times I would burn more lacquer on the horns than I should have, or use too much solder. Now I only burn/tint the lacquer on the old cellulose lacquer horns because those turn black as soon as any heat touches them, and my solder joints require no buffing or cleanup other than spraying them with soapy water to get the flux off. I guess since this post isn't exactly about blacksmithing, I will end it with a picture of my current project. A trumpet I am modifying. It is cleaned up now, and I added a finger hook to it, but I don't have pictures of that yet.  Click here for the full 1600x1200 image.
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Dec 16, 2009 04:14
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Yeah, I am done school. I started working as a full time Brass tech in May. I love it, although since I am the less experienced brass tech (there are only two at my shop) I have to do all of the boring stuff. (I do get some fun/challenging jobs though) Soldering really is an art. I find myself doing poor ones when I am in a bad mood, or have aggressive music on. It involves concentration and in the case of fixing instruments, timing. The timing is needed because you don't want to burn the lacquer on a customers horn, and often you are working on places where there are other solder joints. Too much heat and all of a sudden that one joint you had to do turns in to re-aligning the entire horn. The trumpet is an Olds Ambassador. I did buy a busted up Bach Strad on Ebay last year and rebuilt it, and now I use it on pretty much any gig that isn't classical music. My next goal is to save some money and buy some busted up horns to rebuild and then sell for money, but right now the stuff going on Ebay doesn't make the turnaround profitable.
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Dec 17, 2009 00:35
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flacoman954 posted:Busted up Bach Strad...Sacrilege! If it is a brand you haven't heard of, google it. If it can't be found on google, or is found to be a Chinese or Indian horn, I would stay away from it. In terms of wear areas, I would look for any pitting in the finish. The good thing about Craigslist is that you can actually inspect and play before you buy, which is the best way to test if the horn is worth the money. Look at the braces connecting the bell to the leadpipe (front and back) because on student horns they are generally dented in a bit and the solder joints have started to crack. Look for substantial wear/pitting on the brass. Look on the leadpipe for any red spots. This is a sign of red rot, and you don't want that. Red rot doesn't affect silver horns or horns with rose brass/red brass leadpipes because of the high copper content. Check that the valves move smoothly up and down and the slides move, although a tech can take care of these issues if they exist. Cosmetics should take a back seat to how the horn plays, unless the brass is pitting and warn, or the horn has red rot.
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Dec 17, 2009 13:42
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I have been told that they use Murphy's Oil Soap. I have asked around, and no one has been able to tell me the ratio. I assume you just want it to become ice, but not shatter when flexed. I guess you have to experiment. I did meet someone who uses the soap mixture and said that he froze the tubing in his shop's kitchen freezer. Instrument making shops would use liquid nitrogen to speed up the process. In our industry we also use pitch (tar stuff) to bend tubing, molten lead (although lead is being removed from the industry) and an alloy called cerrosafe or cerrobend. The last two are also known as woods metals. They are alloys of bismuth and other things and they expand by .0001" after an hour of cooling. They use it to cast gun barrels as well I hear. I haven't done any tube bending yet, but when I do, I am going to order me some cerrobend. When we order a part like a french horn or tuba leadpipe, the tube comes either pre-bent to fit the brand of instrument, or straight and filled with pitch so the tech can bend it how they want. Check youtube for trumpet making videos, or french horn making videos. There are lots, and they give you a bit of insight into it. Here is a website that goes through the entire trumpet making process with pictures. You can see their bottle of Murphy's in the tube bending section http://www.zacharymusic.com/Zachary_Music/ZTR900Factory.htm My next project is to make a bending jig, but I don't know how to plan out the hole placement, and how to make my different radius blocks. I have a 2 inch thick roll of acetal delrin I could use for bending pins possibly since I will be only bending brass and copper. Brekelefuw fucked around with this message at 01:12 on Dec 23, 2009 |
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Dec 23, 2009 01:09
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Blacksmith posted:The way I've commonly seen this done was with playground sand. just cap an end, pack it tight with sand (I mean REALLY tight) then heat and bend to your heart's content. Worked pretty drat well too, not much deformation on the end products. I don't know why, but in the music industry I have never heard of sand being used. I did hear a story about a company that made tubas. They would bend the bottom bow around an old oak tree to get the radius they wanted. Over the years, the bow radius changed because the tree kept growing.
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Dec 27, 2009 03:35
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Usually there are one or two good sentences of engrish, but every single one on that label is golden. THE ACCIDENT TROUBLE.
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Jan 5, 2010 13:44
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I am so jealous of the lathe. I have been looking online for them recently. Unfortunately, the kind of lathe I need is one that has a relatively long bed, maybe in the range of 48+ inches so I can make trumpet bells. I don't really have a good place to store one since my parent's garage has a car my dad is rebuilding and other stuff in it, and I live in a basement apartment across town. I love lathing. There is something really satisfying about taking a big rod and making a smaller rod out of it, and maybe adding threads or a hole to it.
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Feb 3, 2010 01:41
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Random Number posted:Aren't Trumpet bells shaped anyway and not turned? Trumpet bells are hand hammered on a mandrel/anvil and then once the rough shape is there, they are placed on a lathe and burnished to the nice round shape they end up as. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRyUt4LC5Zs Here they make two-piece bells and one piece bells. The product ends up looking the same, but two-piece involves brazing the two parts together, instead of just brazing the seam of the brass before turning it. No rifle stuff for me. Don't care for guns in the least.
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Feb 3, 2010 05:13
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dv6speed posted:Lathe news: I demand pictures of the restoration/servicing.
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Feb 4, 2010 13:30
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Slung Blade posted:
Greyhound ships for about $1 per pound, although ther is a 75 or 100lb limit per package. It's how I got 300lb of stuff from Fort McMurray to Toronto and back.
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Feb 5, 2010 02:30
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