Posted by moonlight on January 15, 1999 at 20:31:33:
In Reply to: Re: Chemical Dip posted by michael on January 15, 1999 at 13:39:46:
I would not recommend having anyone other than a qualified repair technician strip and relaquer a brass horn. There are too many things to pay attention to when you disasseble, refinish, and reassemble your horn. Repair technicians are trained in this line of work for years. Plus they have special tools for this process. Many music shop repair departments don't have the facilities to relaquer horns but, they can safely send your instrument to an overhaul shop. It will cost a little more and may take up to 6 months but you will be garunteed you'll receive your horn in the best playing condition and, it will look beautiful too. I personally like the look of brass instruments with worn out laquer. Sometimes refinishing a horn decreases the value of the instrument. If the horn plays and sounds good, then don't do anything to it. You should get your horn profesionally cleaned once a year to prevent corrosion that will destroy the brass. Most music store repair departments do have the facilities and tooling to do this on site usually in a week or so. Support your local repair technicians, this is their livelyhood and most of them really enjoy their work. Its kind of like the band that had a tuba part in an arrangement and told a keyboard player to play it when there were 50 tuba players willing to play it. If you don't know where to go, search for the NAPBIRT (National Assosiation of Professional Band Instrument Repair Technicians) website they might be able to help locate a repair technician in your area.