PSA - Your horn doesn't suck, it just needs a tune up

[dj4eagle]

I had been increasingly dissatisfied with my Eastlake Gen 2 88HO. I'm very much not a professional and not playing nearly as much as I did back college, but many 2nd/3rd partial notes, and much of the valve register, seemed slightly off center and hard to focus. Compared to my YSL-354 and Elkhart 48H, the entire instrument seemed less resonant, less clear, harder to project on, etc. I attributed much of this to lack of practice time in my lower range, and it being a larger horn, but I didn't think the difference between that and my straight horns should have been as much as it was. It's when I tried my friend's similarly equipped Xeno that I knew something was up.

Was my 88H a victim of bad QC and I had just been used to it for 15 years? Was the factory rotary valve off? Was I just that out of practice and lucking out on other horns? Did I need a rebuild? Should I shop for a new horn?

I took my horn in for a chem clean and to remove a couple dents. Tech immediately noted the cheap, degraded foam spit valve pads used by a different shop I had service done at two years before that weren't sealing right, slide corks that were long overdue for replacement (slide lock was hitting the hand grip), and said all of this could have been affecting the horn adversely, and to hold off on any major work until it was tuned up.

The horn I received back was a completely new instrument! All the above things were fixed, and even some bad dent repair in the bell section was corrected. I heard overtones I'd never heard from it before, notes slotted effortlessly, and even though the valve register still feels stuffier and more resistant than I would want, clarity on both sides of the horn across all partials felt improved tenfold.

Lesson learned. If your horn feels off, check in with a competent tech in your area.

[AtomicClock]

I once got dramatic improvement just by lubing the tuning slides. It had been a while.

[Bach5G]

I picked my Benge 290 from the shop today. I took it in a couple of weeks ago for a good cleaning, check out the valves, see what could be done with the slide and roll out a dent in the bell.

The repairman is a delightful woman who was trained by Yamaha in Japan. She has a very keen eye. She is also a trombone player although most the the techs I can think of are trombonists.

Anyway, the horn looks fantastic and the slide is great. The tuning slides were brought back into round and now move smoothly. New string linkage. Replaced the cork in the spit valve. The valves are an interesting story. She found some damage, likely due to previous incompetent repairs. She showed me photos of what she found and the work she did (laborious hand work, she said). The valves work very nicely now.

I’m a little surprised that previous repairmen did not pick up on the damage to the valves, but there is the photographic evidence along with the functional improvement. I think it’s legit.