TromboneChat

Burgerbob wrote: ↑Wed Jun 07, 2023 1:46 am Nice video! Sound levels were a bit low.

I have a friend that just bought one (getting away from his 88HCLSGX). I'll have to see how his is in the valve range.

Tbarh wrote: ↑Wed Jun 07, 2023 2:25 pm Recently tried a 88HNV..Nothing wrong with the trigger range on the one i tried…I guess that You (as always with these semi-mass produced horns) have to Try out more than one Horn to find Yours !

conn88Hagmann wrote: ↑Sun Sep 17, 2023 3:43 pm It’s strange. Most of the feedback I’ve heard from the guys over here who have been sent one is similar to mine. .

I wonder if they send the duffers to the UK!

conn88Hagmann wrote: ↑Tue Sep 19, 2023 10:58 am I have created a “sound Halo” to bring the LT bell back to something like a standard. . It works well!!

Posaunus wrote: ↑Wed Sep 20, 2023 1:09 pm I've just learned from "hyperbolica" on another post that my Elkhart 88H bell is relatively thin, rather like the modern 88HT:
viewtopic.php?p=220572#p220572
"Sometime in the 90s the [8H / 88H] bells got thicker, not sure exactly when. The classic Elkhart thickness bell became classified as the T (for thin) version (8HT)."

So there might be some benefit for me from the "halo effect" (if I were still playing in a large orchestra)?

hornbuilder wrote: ↑Thu Sep 28, 2023 6:12 pm The "T" bells were still heavier, (in different places, too) than the Elkhart bells...

Post by bellend » Thu Oct 14, 2021 6:12 am
During my time as bell maker for Rath trombones I looked into this as part of my research in to vintage instruments.

8H & 88H bells from the Elkhart period were the most consistent in gauge of all the models we had come through the shop. 6H's seemed to have the biggest variation although sadly, I didn't correlate that against any sort of time line ( far too busy).

My own personal conclusion was that the 8H /88H design was in part , like many early American instruments based on a European instrument , most likely German.
Many German instruments feature a very then bell ( quite often one piece) with a nickel silver Kranz covering the last section of the bell flare. My belief is that this design is used to give an easy responding instrument that is also able to handle higher volume levels with out breaking up.

The 8H/88H bells I believe try to replicate this idea in a two piece bell by using a very thin stem 0.3mm ish and a a flare that is approaching 0.8mm at the very edge / The flare gradually goes up in thickness from where it is brazed to the flare , although what process is used to achieve this with consistency at the volumes Conn were making these models I don't know.
I have made a few 'copies' of these bells during my time by hand thinning the flare with a sharpened blade, which did work but was quite time consuming and open to variation.

As to why the bells got thicker at the Artist Symphony stage? I would suspect because it was cheaper and could be more easily made by a less skilled workforce. Despite a lot of people on here's romantic notions about why things change usually it comes down to cost.........

As a last thought I and others observed that the very best playing 8H/88H bells seem to ring to either a G or F# and I found by partially annealing the bell where the flare was joined to the stem I could get most bells close to that pitch.