(no subject)
My trombone is done! It's still got some minor dings and a little bit of normal wear, but othewise it works perfectly! All it took was some tarnite, some WD40, a lot of rags, a couple warm baths, and several hours of work. That turned it from an instrument that looked like a piece of crap (and everyone thought I was crazy for buying) to an instrument that looks like it's, y'know, 10 or 15 years old and has been well used. I played on it for about 20 minutes today. The slide needs to be worked in... I oiled it and stuff, but it's in that just-oiled-so-slightly-sticky stage... Every trombone I've ever picked up after it's been in storage for a while has had that. It just needs a little bit of playing and it'll be perfect... The key is that it's got no dings stopping it, and it's still aligned correctly.
And everyone thought I was nuts when they heard I bought an 80 year old instrument off of ebay. They key? It was structurally still in good shape, it just had some major cosmetic wear. No one wanted to buy it because it didn't look good, meaning the price was low, when actually this is a better instrument than some I've seen going for almost $100 that look pretty good, but in the description says stuff like "slide dented and stuck in place" or "missing spit valve" Those things I couldn't fix and would have to be taken to a repair shop for a hefty fee. With a little TLC, I got myselve a good instrument...
Now I have to decide whether to buy the partially disassembled oboe on ebay for $40... If I knew for sure all the pieces were there, I'd buy it in two seconds... I'm a little hesitant right now simply for the fact that if it's missing a piece, in order to have it in playing condition, I'd have to buy that piece and maybe have to take it in for repairing, which could cost a lot. If I knew for sure that it had every piece, I'd assemble it myself (I'd consider it a puzzle!), have a blast doing it, learn a lot about the instrument, and have a good working instrument when I was done with it.
And everyone thought I was nuts when they heard I bought an 80 year old instrument off of ebay. They key? It was structurally still in good shape, it just had some major cosmetic wear. No one wanted to buy it because it didn't look good, meaning the price was low, when actually this is a better instrument than some I've seen going for almost $100 that look pretty good, but in the description says stuff like "slide dented and stuck in place" or "missing spit valve" Those things I couldn't fix and would have to be taken to a repair shop for a hefty fee. With a little TLC, I got myselve a good instrument...
Now I have to decide whether to buy the partially disassembled oboe on ebay for $40... If I knew for sure all the pieces were there, I'd buy it in two seconds... I'm a little hesitant right now simply for the fact that if it's missing a piece, in order to have it in playing condition, I'd have to buy that piece and maybe have to take it in for repairing, which could cost a lot. If I knew for sure that it had every piece, I'd assemble it myself (I'd consider it a puzzle!), have a blast doing it, learn a lot about the instrument, and have a good working instrument when I was done with it.