Engraved Bach Bb Trumpet, 1930
Repairing Bach Stradivarius Model trumpets accounts for a larger
portion of my work load than anything else, and occasionally, I'll
be asked to restore a very early example such as this. A 20 or 30
year old example in this condition wouldn't be worth the expense
involved but this one is very early as well as originally having a
deluxe finish. This is another restoration that I did for Steven
Ward. It's hard for us to imagine today that somebody treated
such a fine trumpet so badly, but it was obviously considered just
an old trumpet for a kid to throw around. It had also been
subjected to a very bad refinishing job many decades ago. There
were a few original parts missing such as a bottom valve cap,
tuning slide brace, pull knobs and stop nuts, but it retains the
original mouthpipe in fairly good condition. Most of this job was
straightforward dent removal, straightening, repairing solder joints
etc. One challenge was that there were several cracks through the
brass along the engraved lines. Patching over these would hide
portions of the engraving and spoil the effect. Silver soldering, no
matter how carefully done, will fill up the engraved lines, which is
not much better. The only desirable choice is to re-engrave the
lines into the silver solder. This is more difficult than it sounds
because the graver wants to skate across the solder and cut into
the brass.
The original shop card was located for this trumpet which
indicates that it was originally engraved and had finish number 4,
which was burnished silver plating with gold within the engraving.
The engraving had been heavily polished, but I knew from
experience that the new plating would bring some life to it. The
nature of silver plating is that it brings out the contrast between
the polished surface and engraved lines, which are by nature and
from corrosion rough in texture. To achieve the best results in
gold plating the engraving and inside the bell, it was first double
silver plated while detached from the rest of the trumpet. Every
part that was to remain silver plated was carefully masked off
with a special lacquer, then it was heavily gold plated. This
method not only creates a very sharp border between the silver
and gold, but also allows for the bell rim to be gold plated all the
way around. The rest of the trumpet was also double silver
plated and sent back to me to carefully solder the bell to it. The
plating and masking was all done by Anderson Silver Plating.
The fourth photo on the left shows this trumpet beside my Bach
#959 which has a very similar engraved pattern, almost certainly
by the same engraver, and original gold plating. The last two
photos are more restorations of early engraved Bach trumpets,
one with new gold plating and the other with an economical
lacquered finish. Hopefully, this one will be gold plated in the
future as well. All of these trumpets were in similarly rough
condition.
portion of my work load than anything else, and occasionally, I'll
be asked to restore a very early example such as this. A 20 or 30
year old example in this condition wouldn't be worth the expense
involved but this one is very early as well as originally having a
deluxe finish. This is another restoration that I did for Steven
Ward. It's hard for us to imagine today that somebody treated
such a fine trumpet so badly, but it was obviously considered just
an old trumpet for a kid to throw around. It had also been
subjected to a very bad refinishing job many decades ago. There
were a few original parts missing such as a bottom valve cap,
tuning slide brace, pull knobs and stop nuts, but it retains the
original mouthpipe in fairly good condition. Most of this job was
straightforward dent removal, straightening, repairing solder joints
etc. One challenge was that there were several cracks through the
brass along the engraved lines. Patching over these would hide
portions of the engraving and spoil the effect. Silver soldering, no
matter how carefully done, will fill up the engraved lines, which is
not much better. The only desirable choice is to re-engrave the
lines into the silver solder. This is more difficult than it sounds
because the graver wants to skate across the solder and cut into
the brass.
The original shop card was located for this trumpet which
indicates that it was originally engraved and had finish number 4,
which was burnished silver plating with gold within the engraving.
The engraving had been heavily polished, but I knew from
experience that the new plating would bring some life to it. The
nature of silver plating is that it brings out the contrast between
the polished surface and engraved lines, which are by nature and
from corrosion rough in texture. To achieve the best results in
gold plating the engraving and inside the bell, it was first double
silver plated while detached from the rest of the trumpet. Every
part that was to remain silver plated was carefully masked off
with a special lacquer, then it was heavily gold plated. This
method not only creates a very sharp border between the silver
and gold, but also allows for the bell rim to be gold plated all the
way around. The rest of the trumpet was also double silver
plated and sent back to me to carefully solder the bell to it. The
plating and masking was all done by Anderson Silver Plating.
The fourth photo on the left shows this trumpet beside my Bach
#959 which has a very similar engraved pattern, almost certainly
by the same engraver, and original gold plating. The last two
photos are more restorations of early engraved Bach trumpets,
one with new gold plating and the other with an economical
lacquered finish. Hopefully, this one will be gold plated in the
future as well. All of these trumpets were in similarly rough
condition.
Click on image for larger view.
