Lesson Learned - 5/28/13

When buffing a trombone handslide, I'm always a little nervous that the buffing wheel will catch one of the tubes and bend it. In my mind it's a catastrophic bend or kink, but in reality, the forces generated by heavy buffing could conceivably bend a long tube just a little bit. The solution? Buff the tube with a steel handslide mandrel inside it! The mandrel won't bend, and therefore neither will the tube. My coworker M gave me that little trick, and it was welcome advice.