The final one

Some slight adjustments made before the poster went to print. The first set of posters will be placed around school tomorrow morning.

Final poster design maybe

As I mentioned before the poster will be split up into 4 sub posters with the mouthpiece poster at the beginning and then adding the valve section the following day and then the other valve section the next day and finally the bell section. There is always potential to change each section as well allowing for multiple designs up until the date of the workshop. Excuse some of the parts that are badly cut out, its 1.30am and I need to sleep. I'll smooth out the design tomorrow morning with hope to print asap and post around school to spread the word.

some film photos...

To avoid confusion these photos are not from a moving image. They are photos taken on a film slr camera and not digital for once by a good friend of mine who will be hopefully giving me a hand documenting the workshop next week.

Thunderbirds are go!

Headmaster has passed everything and I have signed child protection forms etc so 14th & 15th May we will be building a playing some custom made instruments.

Some poster designs

A couple of poster designs to go in school. The idea is to start off with the mouthpiece poster and then add the valves poster and then a bell section poster the following days to attract more attention each day. I was quite liking the word "trumpet" broken up into 2 lines to allow for bigger lettering but I've discussed with a number of people and it annoys them so I've put it back on the same line and made the text smaller. At the moment I'm undecided which one to go for. Probably be the non broken "trumpet" although I'm willing to hear what other people think. Also the last of the instruments to be gathered up should arrive in my garage by tomorrow evening. I've been on the phone to my old technology teacher and he is still enthusiastic about the project. The suggested date at the min is 14th - 15th May. I am sending a letter to the Headmaster of the school tomorrow to clarify whats happening, fingers crossed he won't have a problem with it.

back in the sticks

Just returned home to create some more instruments and plan out the sessions in school.
I have managed to collect instruments from all over Northern Ireland and my garage is now starting to look like a brass graveyard. In total I have 8 trumpets, 2 french horns, 4 trombones, 5 euphoniums and 3 tubas. Still have a couple more van loads to come but I think it should be enough to teach a class and build my own.

Little bit of an update.

There hasn't been much activity on my blog this week as I'm not at home. It's does not mean I have been sitting around watching daytime tv all day twiddling my thumbs. I have been reading through this instruction manual john gave to me, which has roughly about 100pgs and I am trying to condense that into a more user friendly teaching handbook for school. Its a rather slow and laborious process but I should have some images up soon of the spreads.

As far as the instrument building goes I have been trying to source more instruments from around the country so that I have enough to go into school and create roughly about 10 instruments with the children. I have discussed in college about building my own instrument that shows off all the various parts of each instrument as a showpiece for the final exhibit. Since it is going to be a showpiece I have discussed finishing off the instrument to a much higher level than that would be achieved in school. Therefore I have been pricing silver plating and lacquering for a proper professional finish. So far the price has varied from £300-£1500, I had thought about trying to silver plate and lacquer myself but I do not have the equipment needed to do such a thing so I may have to fork out the money in the long run.

Downgrade your phone.

Fran found this and said it reminded her of my work. This guy makes stickers for the backs of iphones to make them look like old mobiles. He wanted to add design to the blank space on the back of today's iphones and in doing so he thought these stickers might even deter thieves. Here is the link to the article on creative review.

Few more photos

Just uploaded a few photos of the 3 main instruments I plan to build with pupils in school. I've had quite a lot of discussion with a number of people and I feel it is best to keep the instruments as simple as possible so that they are easy to build and play. Removing the valves and turning them into simple bugles is the simplest way to do it.






I have a few close up shots of the actually joints that have been soldered etc so you can make out the fine detail on each instrument.

The French Horn:





The trumpet:







The tuba:





It is ridiculously hard to solder the parts together subtly without big lumps solder collecting at the bottom of the joints but I think I can safely say my soldering has improved since I began. Hear are a few photos of the first french horn I soldered a few weeks ago. I had difficulty melting the solder at the right heat and it so it melted in big clumps thus really messy joints but after a talk with John he showed me how to fix this problem.





Remember the manual I mentioned John had put together over the years? Well here are a few photos of it. There is a lot of useful information in this book it just needs to be broken down and designed into something more efficient and eye catching.





A little something I can work on while I'm in London, I am also starting to consider promotion ideas to get children to sign up to this class in the first place. Posters around the school are going to be a heavy influence in capturing the pupils attention and also the school website is heavily used by the pupils and their parents so I need to consider some graphics for the web.

Building a tuba bugle and testing the horn and trumpet

Good days work in the shed...

I had a very productive morning. Traveled up to John's workshop this morning with my father and we rummaged through his graveyard of old instruments. I decided to take my trumpet creation up to John to see if we could finish the piece off to a higher standard. I'm actually quite impressed at how well the polisher finishes off the brass after all the welding and sawing etc. Finally got my SLR back from London so I can actually take some decent shots. Here are a few from today's work:






Some shots of finishing the trumpet off with stronger braces and a bit of polish.








The destruction and reconstruction of the french horn:


The french horn before demolition


Blowtorching the joints.


Removing the valve section


The horn without the valve section.


Figuring out a way to join the bell and mouthpipe together.


Soldering more piping to the mouthpiece.


The final bugle style french horn soldered together.




Trying to iron out a few kinks.

I'm going to finish off cleaning up and polishing the french horn now so that it is more presentable. I'm also thinking of doing similar bugle style to one of the tubas I picked up. I will try and film these to show the process of the work and when someone else is around who can actually blow the instruments I'll get footage of it.