This Holton alto horn, circa 1913, came in to the shop with a leadpipe that was not only damaged, but mostly sheared off. That necessitated replacing the leadpipe and mouthpiece receiver, but the age and obscurity of this instrument meant that no replacement parts are available. The only option, then, was to custom bend a new leadpipe.
The remnant that was still on the instrument appeared to have been a replacement, so I was already two degrees removed from being able to replicate the original. Because mouthpiece shanks weren't yet standardized in the first few decades of the 20th century, it's almost impossible to know what sort of mouthpiece and receiver this instrument was designed for, without seeing an original. Further, without those pieces of information, it's even more difficult to determine what the original leadpipe dimensions would have been.
However, we work in the real world, and one has to learn to work with situations where incomplete information is all that's available. What we did know were the dimensions of a modern alto horn mouthpiece (not quite the same as a trumpet, or a mellophone), and of a modern mouthpiece receiver. Having secured one of those, it was possible to figure out what dimensions would be needed for the leadpipe. In an ideal setting, we could have gotten a piece of tubing drawn to a custom taper to fit those dimensions, but within the owner's non-infinite budget the best option was to use a section of a universal cornet leadpipe that matched pretty closely. They wanted an instrument that would work reasonably well, and not a museum piece, so I had no qualms about making that compromise in the interest of efficiency.
There are no pictures of the process, but below you can see the before and after. The new pipe came straight and was filled with pitch, so fitting it required bending by hand over wooden forms to acheive the necessary curves. The pitch prevents the tube from kinking, though it doesn't prevent any distortion around the bends, so after draining the pitch and cleaning the tube, it had to be rounded out by pushing through graduated dent balls. For that part of the process I always solder several braces across the tube to preserve the angle of the bends while working. After rough-buffing, the part was soldered on, then it got a color buff and a coat of lacquer. Why lacquer a brass part on a heavily tarnished silver instrument? I don't have a good answer for that, except that I thought it looked better than leaving the part raw and I took some pride in the final product.
 |
| The instrument as it arrived, with the remnant of the old mouthpipe still in place. |
 |
| The new part installed, buffed, and lacquered. |
 |
| Another view of the final result. |
