I just got back my Corporation Bach 42B from Scott Sweeney, and it's such a good horn now!

I also have a MV 16, and an early Corporation straight 36, and wondering whether there's any "bang for the buck" in having these two horns disassembled and reassembled as well?

They don't seem too dysfunctional as it is...

Never a Bach but I did have a Bundy that I did that to once. It was much better afterwards! It just felt better constructed in my hands. And it played like it, too.

In fact, I saw your other post about your 42B you got back from Scott Sweeney, and it made me think about sending my new-to-me Bach 12 (not a 16) in for that same treatment you got! I feel like mine has some tension in it that my 2b and old Bundy did not. Plus I like the idea of a reverse tuning slide for it, too.

Sorry that I can't help and that I don't have any direct experience here to share!

Scott did a great job, as did Eric Edwards, can't go wrong either way.

Pretty much any trombone can benefit from making sure it is assembled without stress.

Awesome!

Scott has rebuilt a Bach 12 and a Bach 36B for me. Both were wonderful horns already with (to the naked eye) no issues whatsoever. However, both came back playing and sounding stunningly better as a result. He rebuilt a Benge 175F for me…it’s fabulous. Everyone should send their horns to him!

When you say disassembled and reassembled, do you mean he takes off all of the soldered parts and cleans everything up and puts it back together?

I'm assuming when reassembled it's done perfectly and efficiently? That's why it's better? What makes the horn better after everything? Now you've got me thinking!

I’ve had this on a Conn 88h which took some damage being dropped by baggage handlers, it wasn’t too bad (still played it on the tour I was on) but after I returned it went to Mick Rath.

He put it back to like new, or more accurately better playing than new. He took the bell section apart and straightened it out, reassembled and relacquered.

[quote="JLivi"]When you say disassembled and reassembled, do you mean he takes off all of the soldered parts and cleans everything up and puts it back together?

I'm assuming when reassembled it's done perfectly and efficiently? That's why it's better? What makes the horn better after everything? Now you've got me thinking![/quote]
Time and attention to detail. Making sure all the tubing is cut square, for example. A lot of Bach’s look like the bell tail was cut with a band saw, without bothering to hold the tail perpendicular to the blade. Put everything back together with no silly gaps in the tubes.

You can do a lot of soldering that will “fit” and “work”. But know how much it expands with how much heat and where it will be when it cools…. That takes skill and time. There will ALWAYS be stress in the horn when assembled (otherwise it wouldn’t hold together); but keeping it a reasonable level is often not a focus of production work.

Cheers,

Andy

[quote="elmsandr"][/quote]
Time and attention to detail. Making sure all the tubing is cut square, for example. A lot of Bach’s look like the bell tail was cut with a band saw, without bothering to hold the tail perpendicular to the blade. Put everything back together with no silly gaps in the tubes.

You can do a lot of soldering that will “fit” and “work”. But know how much it expands with how much heat and where it will be when it cools…. That takes skill and time. There will ALWAYS be stress in the horn when assembled (otherwise it wouldn’t hold together); but keeping it a reasonable level is often not a focus of production work.

Cheers,

Andy

[/quote]

This!

I think there's a different M.O. between a technician working at a Bach plant cranking things out, and one who takes their time to optimize an instrument: making sure pieces fit together well so they don't require tons of solder, or as Scott Sweeney pointed out, placing the bell braces optimally (a bit of trial and error to it).

Matt Walker commented on one thread that it is a something of a misnomer to think of the workers at the bigger shops as artisans, carefully sweating every detail, as opposed to factory workers: perhaps they are more like machine operators, a sad result of these companies having their asses handed to them by Yamaha, and now increasingly by China.

I am grateful to own Bachs whose components seem to be pretty good, and that we have the specialists we do to optimize them. My original post was to appreciate whether the bell section on a straight horn, with so much less going on, might nonetheless benefit from a rebuild. In my case, the fact that Scott reversed the main tuning slide on the Bach 42B he re-assembled means that I'm going to have to have my straight 36 modified anyway to accept the 42's main tuning slide, so he might as well give it the full monty.

"Destressing" is a questionable term.

Movement, expansion and contraction, are inherent in soldering. Heating a straight brass tube will make it longer, heating a bent crook will make it open up. Lead or silver-tin will cool and solidify faster than the brass can return to its original dimensions. In three piece bracing (tuning slide, hand slide, bell cross braces) there will always be something that shifts to take up this uneven expansion and contraction.

.

Good assembly is all about knowing how this works, knowing how things will move, and having proper technique to ensure things will fit together properly after assembly.

Most folks working in mass production situations don't have the full context of having to make a handslide work after heating the shit out of it to solder it together in a fixture.