Marcus brought this unfortunate horn into the shop, sheepishly explaining that he fell onto his trumpet while horsing around in the band room. This reinforces a couple of my repair tech principles: gig bags are dent bags and humans can be a horn’s worst enemy.

First I had to remove the bell. Notice the dents in several locations. The biggest one in the bore of bell is compeletely closed, metal to metal. The entire bell is bent downward and the bell tail is badly bent and dented. YIKES!

Squished bell, removed

One closer look and I became particularly curious about an old repair at the receiver and leadpipe.

Bent lead pipe, slides out of alighnment

Curiouser and curiouser…

Hmmmm…what’s up here?

Ah-ha, Oh Boy! Underneath the receiver was a huge hole and crack, due to poor maintenance over the life of the horn, which can cause degradation of the brass, known as RED ROT.

Ooohhhh!

The only solution was to replace the lead pipe assembly.

Brand new lead pipe

I checked for the alignment of the new pipe prior to the removal of the old one. I straightened the tuning slide, making sure the inner tubes were parallel and on the same plane.

Lead pipe installation

Then I removed the old lead pipe and reshaped all the braces. Time to reassemble.

Old lead pipe, removed

Voila!

Moral of the story:  Next time, use a hard case!

Horn, renewed