Dents.. Not for the fainthearted

[scotsman]

Found this on Youtube..Regards

https://www.youtube.com/@wesleemusicrepair9820

 

[JayeNM]

Actually, bad-looking dents (to a non tech) are often the most straightforward to fix, although they cause alarm in folks. Pulldown, a flattened bow, a shot to the body tube....most of the time, really just another day at the office, although they elicit dramatic reactions.

It can be the little ones, not as obvious, which are the bears.

And worst of all...dents which were previously BADLY repaired.....

 

[skeller047]

I follow that channel, he makes dent work look easy. He also has a couple of videos on sax repair, and I learned a nice trick from watching him - use a piece of leather to move the pad in the cup (he has a pice of old belt), rather than a metal pad slick or ring.

 

[Ivan]

And worst of all...dents which were previously BADLY repaired

Is that to do with the hardening of the brass that @Dr G has mentioned more than once?

 

[ghostler]

Is that to do with the hardening of the brass that @Dr G has mentioned more than once?

I believe that is why the tech after straightening the metal applies a torch to it, to turn the work hardened metal ductile again. I remembered that from high school autoshop classes 50 years ago. Back then, we watched military training (I think in 16 mm reel film) movies. The autoshop teacher's brother worked in the library on one of the military bases back then, how the school had access.

It was regarding steel, but imagine it also applied to brass, too. We learned then to use acetylene torches, but the auto metal is much softer now, so those torches aren't used as much.

In another video he is using the torch to apply what may be a soft bronze rod to fill a bell tear after the straightening (not sure without research what exact rod because I don't do much welding as a hobbyist, but have used a small Weller MAP gas welder to silver-braze repair copper pipes in my house).

I like his improvising methods to remove dents, goes to show that if one is competent with their hands, they can make their own tools to do the repairs with.

 

[TobyB]

Wes makes me cringe a little sometimes. And it's not what he's doing, it's how-
it's him grunting and wheezing and jamming the dent balls into things...

And his apparently haphazard heating of things pushed me to dig up that the annealing temperature
of brass really IS pretty wide AND it can cool far faster than steel.
(modern auto steels are far HARDER than they were 60 years ago- which makes them far less workable)

That said, I've watched a LOT of his videos, and learnt a LOT from what he does.

t

 

[Stephen Howard]

Not a comment about the dentwork - but in the video he resolders a tonehole. Or half resolders it.
That never works in the long term (and often in the short term too). Once the joint's been compromised you have to pull the tonehole off, clean up the mating surfaces and refit it with fresh solder.

 

[JayeNM]

Is that to do with the hardening of the brass that @Dr G has mentioned more than once?

Not necessarily, I am more referring to dent repairs done improperly, for example using the wrong sized dentballs on an area....maybe the after effects of the brass settling in after the repair makes it worse. I was more stating if the repair is done poorly and the metal ultimately stretched as a result, getting it back to looking very good is often impossible.