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Martin Symphony Trumpet |
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Martin Band Instrument C0 Model: Symphony After searching for many years for a Martin Symphony trumpet, I ended up acquiring two at nearly the same time! This turned out to be quite important as even though the two examples were only four years apart, there were quite a few differences. This 1922 medium bore version came from a Goodwill store and had seen a rough life. The second slide was missing and the rear bell brace was an obvious replacement. The positive was the gold engraving, valve caps, and other parts. Here it was as purchased.
After receiving it, I used a slide from my Dansant model, added some fresh valve oil, and tried to play it. The valves worked fine but the sound told me that there was a leak somewhere. It turned out to have a crack on the bottom of the leadpipe just after the receiver. My guess was that this got dropped on the mouthpiece end hard enough to break the rear bell brace and cause the crack. Some more photos before restoration.
This photo shows some sloppy old repairs, a leaning slide brace, and a patched ferrule.
The beautiful engraving shows up really well against the tarnished silver.
Everything apart here and I have added a gold-plated mouthpiece saved for a horn like this, a Martin pinky ring, and an assortment of spare parts to be used to recreate the missing second slide and convert the third slide to be adjustable.
The first part of the slide conversion was to cut the tubes between the cross-brace and lyre mount, then solder the pieces on the inner slide.
Mounted back on to test the fit. The thin bands of missing tubing at the joint from the razor saw will be replaced by o-ring bumpers. I wondered why Martin didn't do this originally until I found out that despite using the original tubing, getting this to work perfectly took a lot of work.
I made this jig from two pieces of nickel silver sheet and a wood block in order to make a perfect perpendicular cut of the slides.
Now fitted with a finger ring and stop rod from my parts bin.
In the process of trying to fine-tune the slide, I found that not only was the tuning slide tubing not parallel with the leadpipe (in the background in the photo below), but both third slide outer tubes were loose at the valve connection. I ended up taking everything off, getting the tuning slide parallel again, then re-attaching the third slide. My guess is that this was hit hard enough to break the solder bonds yet everything appeared to be fine since the bottom tuning slide tube was still holding things together.
All ready for final assembly.
The finished third slide.
The finished second slide made from Martin parts.
I also made a new rear bell brace from spare parts.
The 1922 catalog image shows a third slide ring but it didn't really have a function.
This was a year before Martin added the "Handcraft" label.
The tuning slide is still a little crooked but much better than before. The original Bb/A stop ring is missing from the bottom branch.
Here is the 1922 medium-bore version above a 1926 large-bore model. The design is quite different, not only in the location of the valves, but also in the taper of the leadpipe. By 1926, the form was shorter in height and longer in length, a pinky ring had been added as a standard item, and the bell braces were changed. The last examples made were in 1935.
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