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Fascinating old (rare) 1930s Conn factory video
Posted: Tue Oct 28, 2025 5:08 pm
by catgrowlB
Re: Fascinating old (rare) 1930s Conn factory video
Posted: Tue Oct 28, 2025 7:11 pm
by bloke
That video reminds me that I need to get my Vocabell trombone fixed up and sold - along with some other top of the line vintage "jazz" trombones of other makes.
And it also makes me think about my in progress Buescher bass saxophone restoration. (Upon examination, Buescher and Conn bass saxes were probably made in the same factory - with a few differences, such as the bell brace styling, (of course) engraving, and just a few other things. Some bass saxophonists claim that they weren't, just as many tuba players claim that Holton and York 4/4 tuba bodies and bells were of separate manufacturer, even though their body parts are completely interchangeable (and even feature some of the same hidden stamping in areas which are covered up by solder joints). It's really easy for the saxophonists to claim that the two makes of bass saxophones play differently, because pad heights can vary depending on the technician and of course then there are mouthpieces and reeds and all those variables... Just as the Holton and York 4/4 instruments really don't quite play the same because their valve sections differed by about 10/1000ths of an inch, which is enough for an instrument to feel different from another.
I have other instruments which are ahead of all those to get fixed up and sold though.
Every winter I think I'm going to get a whole bunch of stuff done, and I only get some stuff done.
That's a wonderful video. Thanks!
Re: Fascinating old (rare) 1930s Conn factory video
Posted: Tue Oct 28, 2025 7:23 pm
by arpthark
Hydraulically formed tubing in the 1930s was a shocker for me!
Great stuff, thanks for sharing.
Re: Fascinating old (rare) 1930s Conn factory video
Posted: Thu Oct 30, 2025 9:12 pm
by catgrowlB
It's kinda amazing to me how high-precision and well-made old Conns, Yorks, Holtons, Kings, etc. were made roughly a century ago compared to other instruments from that time. I have a few really old Holtons, an old Elkhart Band Inst. tuba, and parts from a former H.N. White/King raincatcher sousa, and they were all made so well with excellent tolerances and machining, while still having a lot of handwork involved. In contrast, my old Bohemian Kaiser BBb is quite crudely constructed, even though everything works fine. Things like ferrules, braces, slide ends, etc are much more crudely constructed on the Kaiser with deviations and imperfections close up, while those things are much more precision-made on the old US-made horns
That Conn video just illustrates that.
Re: Fascinating old (rare) 1930s Conn factory video
Posted: Fri Oct 31, 2025 9:19 am
by gocsick
arpthark wrote: Tue Oct 28, 2025 7:23 pm
Hydraulically formed tubing in the 1930s was a shocker for me!
Great stuff, thanks for sharing.
Surprising to me too!! I had to look it up....
Hydraulic sheet forming for instrument bells was patented (US Patent 1724280) in 1929 by Edward J. Gulick of Elkhart, Indiana (Conn’s backyard). The patent explicitly describes forming a flat sheet “by hydraulic pressure in a mould” to make a one-piece, jointless brass instrument bell.
https://patentimages.storage.googleapis ... 724280.pdf
Interesting that it's not mentioned in my machine design and metal forming books... they reference sheet hydroforming (a.k.a. hydramolding/flexforming) patents from the 1950's and the Cincinnati Milling Machine’s “Hydroform” presses.
