Antique Musical Instruments/Springs on a trumpet key squeaking

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Expert: - 5/26/2009


Question

The trumpet (not the b
Dear Kenton, I have taken on the burden of restoring my grandfather's trumpet (Selmer Paris Deville from the early 60's). Some time after my grandfather died in 1991  my grandmother took the trumpet out of its case and put it in a plastic bag and put it under a bed and put the case in our garage.(my grandmother was not up to date with instrument care if you can tell)So time went on and the bed fell on the bell and crushed it a little bit. My mom not thinking about the old plastic bag under the bed just put it in the top of the closet. So when I started getting in to band and trumpets I heard about it from my dad, we did not know were it was so we went looking and about a year ago we found it then we found the case in the garage were my grandmother had put in 1991.(not the best case anymore but it worked and is working)So we went and had it cleaned and polished and the bell fixed.(professionaly) Now It has a very jazzy ,bold sound and the slides are very free and easy to move so are the keys just when ever I play it the springs on the keys sqeak very annoyingly and I'm getting very frustrated because it is a fairly good trumpet now and that is the only thing that is wrong with it wright now that I can see or hear and I was just woundering if there was a way I could fix it with out taking it to a repair shop. If so I would very much appreciat it Thank you, Matt

Answer
If all of the pistons squeak, then I would suspect that there may be incorrect springs in it.  If it is only one piston, then there be something wrong with one spring or other component of the piston.  In which case you may want to swap parts with another spring and see if you can isolate where the problem is.  

Antique Musical Instruments

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Kenton Scott

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Please note: My area is BRASS instruments, not other wind, string or percussion instruments. I will provide information on antique, obscure and out of production BRASS instruments. 1) Please don't ask for evaluations, I'll not provide them on this site. 2) I am often asked very similar questions, so I'd invite you to first check on Horn-u-Copia.net. Much of the information I have garnered about this topic, I have posted on this WEB site.

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I perform in several historical bands, have informally researched the area, repair brass instruments, and operate a Forum dedicated to the topic at http://horn-u-copia.net

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B.S. Ed, M.S.

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