Repair-Specific Videos

[the elephant]

If you have repair-specific videos to share that do not really merit having their own thread, maybe we could put them here. I think it would be okay. The Media forum is not a high-traffic area and the stuff we post about here is seriously arcane stuff.

I just watched this and found it very interesting. Our horns are plated in the exact, same manner, and (barring old chrome-plated bugles) except that we stop at the nickel section or swap in silver for the nickel plating.

I have had an interest in paying for a very nicely done chrome plating on one of my horns, but there are two things that keep me from that…

• When you get a dent, if the chrome plating was not applied like these guys do it (in a super-thin flash coat) it can crack and raise some razor-sharp edges that can give you a nasty laceration. (DAMHIK) Not good.

• You cannot solder to chrome, so no further work could ever be done without first sanding the chrome down to the nickel in the affected area. Also: Not good.

It would be fun to fart around with, but the costs are far too prohibitive. An alternative would be very heavy nickel plating that does not rub or peel off like a certain brand flogged by a certain mid-Atlantic-area tuba shop…

Anyway, this was very interesting to me. I have used straight lead for bodywork in the past and it works far better than Bondo or any other putty or filler. But it takes SKILL to do it without a huge amount of waste. As the mad says in the video: lead is expensive!

Enjoy!