Keep it simple - no profanity, no name calling, nothing unrelated to trumpets/cornets/flugelhorns/etc. and musical topics in general. That gives topics a pretty wide latitude without excessive rules. Be civil to your fellow members if there’s a disagreement on some point, and keep things PG in case younger people are looking in.
Anyone here into photographing railroad subjects? Years ago, I was interested in both photography and trains, and took a lot of photos of them, mostly with an old Miranda 35mm camera. I still like photography, but I don’t chase trains any more...lol
Anyway, to get things started, I’ll post a few of the ones I’ve taken for any who are interested. Feel free to post any you have taken, but please don’t post generic pics found on the net.
@N1684T said in Hello! Welcome to TB, who are you?:
I found a copy of American Drummer Boy on Ebay. Love civil war stuff.....
I ran across this screen shot of me playing Eb cornet in the movie. That’s me on the end by the stair. 
Hope you all have a happy and safe upcoming 4th, even those of you in other countries. Here’s a photo I took a number of years ago that is appropriate.
I saw this cool jazz trio on a walk through the neighborhood this morning. Can you dig it? 
Took some new pics of this cool little cornet. Made from German silver, oval-port Allen valves.
Note: If you click on the pictures, they are higher resolution.
A few new glamour shots of a rare instrument...
...click on the photos for higher resolution...
Thanks for your concern. It sits on a shelf in the spare bedroom, and I’m not overly concerned about any health hazards or deterioration of the bugle itself. It’s probably 80 years old and still looks fine, I don’t handle it, and it will probably still be on the shelf for my daughter to dispose of when I’m gone… 
Typically when a trumpet is new, it’s best to oil the valves frequently because of the tighter fit in the bore, and wiping them down before re-oiling is a good idea, too. After they wear in a bit, I don’t think they will need oiling quite as much, but oiling a little too much is better than not enough.
As for the “before and after” comment, if you oil them after you play, that would seem to take care of the before when you pick it up again. Most oil evaporates a bit over time, but if you play every day, I wouldn’t think it would need oiling again if you oiled them after playing just the day before.
Still playing the Mercedes, and tired of the awkward 3rd slide ring assembly. I took the horn to Southeastern Musical Services and asked them to replace it with a fixed ring I had bought on eBay. About a week later I picked it up - old adjustable ring assembly removed, new ring soldered on, slide polished and relacquered, all for $50.
Years ago, I received a frantic call from a choir director asking if I could fill in on 2nd part for a big, multi-performance Christmas extravaganza that was at its mid point. The 2nd trumpet had a meltdown the night before and quit. I said yes, and showed up the next day and sight read the book, which luckily wasn’t too complicated. I played 2 more performances after that, and received the same stipend as those who played the entire run of the show.
@J-Jericho said in Doubling on tenor sax:
@Dale-Proctor The mouthpieces in your Bach Mercedes case look fairly deep... or is that an illusion?
They are what I’d call a medium C-cup depth. The gold one (top one) is a Connstellation 9C-W, and the silver one is a Curry 3C.
Here are a few of my finds over the years:
1977 Bach Stradivarius at a junk store for $150. Just needed polishing.
1983 Bach Stradivarius C trumpet, almost new trade-in at a music store, $500.
1890 Besson (London) A/Bb/C cornet on eBay, $65. I did have to pay a shop $50 to unstick everything.
1976 Bach Mercedes on eBay (my most recent find), $175. It plays as well as my Strad, and BTW, it’s not a Mercedes II.
@Richard-III said in Old vintage maintenance.Conn:
In 60 years of playing, I've never seen red rot. Some of my horns are well over a hundred years old. I don't swab or put oil down the lead pipe. I rarely give my horns a bath. If they get gunky, I'll then do the bath thing.
So that brings up a question, how common really is it for those of you that have had the problem?
I’ve never owned an instrument that developed red rot, and I’ve played a couple of them for 40 years now, and a third one for 20 years. And, I am pretty lax about cleaning them as often as I should. Maybe the brass used was resistant to it, but I suspect a large part of the red rot problem is just a high level of acidity in the owner’s saliva, with a lack of horn cleanliness just being a contributing factor. We’ve all seen people whose hands quickly eat through the exterior finish on a trumpet and then attack the brass underneath, while other people don’t have that problem. I’d guess it’s the same thing with saliva - some peoples’ saliva corrodes brass, and others’ saliva doesn’t.
I own a couple instruments that do have red rot, but they already had it when I bought them. The rot is an aesthetic blemish right now, but I’ll probably be 6 feet under before there are actually any holes in the leadpipes.
Those old Conn trumpets have a sleeve over the leadpipe, so you’ll never see red rot on the outside of one. The only way to see it is by pulling the tuning slide out and looking inside the leadpipe for hard, crusty spots that are slightly elevated.
Jack should have told Merv that he would play Cottontail if Faddis would sing Conjunction Junction…lol
