Slide crook dent - affects slotting?

[blap73]

I picked up a King 606 - and so far like it a lot more than my old Reynolds. OK, admittedly I haven't played in decades. But I'm having issues not cracking an ordinary G (4th position). I seems to be a much bigger problem on that note than elsewhere in the mid-range.

The horn has a poor repair to a slide crook dent. Someone simply straightened the bumper, and soldered it back on with a big lump of solder underneath. The dent is fairly sharp and maybe reduces the inner volume by 25%. I'm wondering if this dent could affect slotting on some notes. I did some calculations and it appears that the dent is at about 1/3 of the total horn length when in 4th position. Which I'm thinking would be no effect on 3rd harmonic notes, but exactly wrong for 4th harmonic?

I'm sure some guru here will know! Thank you.

[robcat2075]

Does the outer slide from any other trombone you have fit?

If that got a different result that would be an indicator.

[robcat2075]

Another way to test your hypothesis is to identify some other note in another position that should be affected by that dent.

[ithinknot]

The horn has a poor repair to a slide crook dent. Someone simply straightened the bumper, and soldered it back on with a big lump of solder underneath. The dent is fairly sharp and maybe reduces the inner volume by 25%. I'm wondering if this dent could affect slotting on some notes.

Entirely possible... just get it fixed. Any slide that has had that kind of damage (and has then been repaired that incompetently) is more or less guaranteed to be in less than optimal alignment anyway, so - regardless of the G - it'll be worth it.

[blap73]

Actually the alignment is really good. The dent is very localized and didn't seem to affect the tube spacing. My digital caliper shows the spacing to be less than 0.2 mm different from one end to the other.

[ChadA]

It wouldn’t surprise me at all. I had a dent in the wrong place in a tuning slide once that made slots unstable until it was fixed.

[Crazy4Tbone86]

Hey blap73,

The cost of having a tech replace that crook is very reasonable. I worked in a Music & Arts repair shop for quite a few years. M & A owned THOUSANDS of those King 606s in their rental fleet, so we were repairing those constantly. One of the first things that I was trained to do was assess the damage to King 606 slide crooks. In general, it was cheaper (parts and labor combined) to replace the entire crook than it was to spend 20 or more minutes removing all the dents from the crook. Thus, I was replacing those crooks constantly.

I'm not going to post the cost of that part. Besides, you can probably find it someplace online. However, I will state that it is about 1/4 the price of many other replacement crooks. Best of luck!

[blap73]

In general, it was cheaper (parts and labor combined) to replace the entire crook than it was to spend 20 or more minutes removing all the dents from the crook.

Yes, I've discovered how inexpensive the crook is - even when pre-assembled (bumper and water key mount already installed). I was wondering whether replace or repair the part would be the better option - thanks for the info.

[Crazy4Tbone86]

My recommendation is to replace it. I have found that those crooks can work-harden easily when the dents are tapped out. When that happens, the horn can possibly take on different acoustical properties.

[spencercarran]

Hey blap73,

The cost of having a tech replace that crook is very reasonable. I worked in a Music & Arts repair shop for quite a few years. M & A owned THOUSANDS of those King 606s in their rental fleet, so we were repairing those constantly. One of the first things that I was trained to do was assess the damage to King 606 slide crooks. In general, it was cheaper (parts and labor combined) to replace the entire crook than it was to spend 20 or more minutes removing all the dents from the crook. Thus, I was replacing those crooks constantly.

I'm not going to post the cost of that part. Besides, you can probably find it someplace online. However, I will state that it is about 1/4 the price of many other replacement crooks. Best of luck!

That's interesting. My Benge (which I think uses identical slide crook as a King) has some damage to the crook as well. Nothing horrendous and it still plays fine, but... if replacing it is cheap, I might do that.

[Crazy4Tbone86]

Yep, many of those Benge horns used the King parts. The 165 and 190 horns share many parts with a King 4B. I haven’t replaced a crook from a King 4B or King 607 lately (or the Benge equivalents), so I don’t remember if those crooks are as reasonably priced.

[Leanit]

There was an old-timers' tale that if you had a 2B that was flat on high Bb, you could dent the tuning crook in just the right place to help it. No idea if it's true, but I've seen stranger things turn out to be true.