Rusty Trombone??

Not anymore!

This long weekend I decided that I was finally going to tackle something I’d been wanting to do for a long time:

I de-lacquered my trombone bell.

I love my trombone (a King 4B Sonorous with F-attachment) but truth be told, I was always a teensy bit embarrassed by it.

You see, I rescued the horn after it languished in the depths of an Alabama basement for years. It was discolored and pitted and scratched.

It plays great and sounds wonderful, but it looks… rough.

Basically it is the dogfighting pit bull of horns. Or was.

Mostly I’ve always been of the mindset that it doesn’t have to look pretty, it just has to play pretty. But I am painfully aware of how unpretty it was while sitting next to my fellow trombone players.

They have these nice, spiffy horns and mine really stood out like a turd in a punchbowl in comparison.

The main reason is that the epoxy lacquer that King used back in the day ages funny. It darkens the brass to a fakey, orangey-gold color. Like a fake gold watch color.

Not pretty.

That and my horn was all mottled and had brass rust pitting, etc.

Okay- so long story longer– I got out my brasso, an industrial scotch brite pad, ultra fine steel wool, and set to work scrubbing the hell out of that fucker.

3.5 hours later:

As you can see, now the horn gleams with that old timey, raw brass matte finish (like Winton Marsalis’s trumpet).

I don’t have a good “before” pic, but from this detail you can see where I left some of the darker finish for patina:

So now instead of being an embarrassment, my horn will be the cool, trendy, delacquered “bell of the ball”!

I can’t wait to show it off next season!