Well, tonight the trumpet I wrote about earlier arrived, somewhat battered as advertised. And as I was told before, it was not playable - at least initially.
I must have spent a good fifteen to twenty minutes inspecting it. You can tell it was probably dropped and repairs attempted by someone who didn't know how to repair a musical instrument. It's a little bent and dented, and the crossbraces were shabbily re-soldered, but the bell of the horn looks good. The valve action was still good on the first valve, not so good on the third valve, and the second valve was stuck altogether. The slides were in good shape. The finish is bad.
When I played it, it sounded like something was stuck in it. Then just for fun, I took out and inspected the valves one at a time. They looked fine. Then I remembered something my junior high band teacher said 32 years ago - never take all the valves out at once because you might put them back in wrong. But I also remembered that the valve number was usually stamped into the metal (which is why I got away with taking all the valves out at once). So once again, I took out the third valve - it was stamped with the number 2. So I pulled the second valve and sure enough, it was stamped with the number 3. No wonder the trumpet wasn't playable (I haven't played in years, but come on, I couldn't have gotten that bad). Anyhow, I switched the valves and voila - it played fine, much to the chagrin of my wife and dog.
Some the solder joints are coming loose. The trumpet could definitely use some rehab, but with a good cleaning, some vaseline for the slides, and some valve oil, this instrument will be quite playable. Praise God!
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