King valve trombone (recent era manufacturing)

[bloke]

a fancy silver-plated recent-vintage one

I've played Conn valve trombones (based on 6H), I own an Olds (basically, the same valveset as the "marching trombone" with an 8 inch yellow brass bell (with fairly fancy engraving) - NOT the same bell as Ambassador, Special, Super, or Recording.
note: VERY FEW Olds small-shank trombones feature 8-inch bells. Most are 7-1/2 inch with the "Recording" typically being (though small shank) 8-1/2 inch.

I had previously never played a King.

I've heard (??) that some of the Kings were 2B-based and some were 3B-based.

This one seems to be a 3B-based bell section with a 2B-based (.480" bore) valve section.

The 3rd piston was dragging (which is why it was brought in).

I never quite figured out what was wrong (other than it was NOT the casing) so I continued to take out scuff marks on the piston (spots that were NOT simply vertical contact lines, but individual spots) with 1000 grit (followed up by 1500 grit) oiled paper UNTIL (finally) the piston stopped dragging (VERY subtle removal of material).

The guides also were flopping around (failing to make the next 90 degrees for tightness) so I took a needle file to the #3 guide track in the casing (just in "case" the corner of the guide was dragging against a rough track edge).

I suggested removing all oil residue and putting thread glue on the guide threads (obviously, with the guide oriented properly) but I preferred to NOT do that myself, as I wanted him to walk out with the piston NOT dragging (as opposed to telling him to "wait for the glue to dry").

Anyway, It's not dragging now, and still offers a nice suction or compression release (again: EXTREMELY subtle removal of material).

I don't like pissy-@$$ jobs like this (whereby something is "almost" right, but one has to continue to dick with it).

oh yeah:
My F. E. Olds and Son (original gleaming lacquer and original NICE case WITH playing slide also on board AND original brochure included) is a better instrument.

Also...I was going to undo his 3-piece King balancer for him. (They went back to the original style.)
I wrapped the knurled/threaded ring with a thick washcloth and tapped it with a rubber mallet.
Guess what? Freakin' nickel plating chipped off.
I have a vintage (same style) King balancer (from the 1960's...H. N. White era), and demonstrated for him me whacking on that same knurling with a STEEL dent hammer (no marks, and no damage to the nickel).
On his that nickel plated over yellow brass with NO COPPER STRIKE...so the nickel plating is just "hanging there".

...so many compromises in their final era of production (though a bit of fancy engraving added, here and there, along with a few fancy-@$$ cases).

I TESTED a (student model 606 .500" bore) playing slide on it. It was slightly too large, but - YET - DID bolt up ok, and the threaded DID engage.
I suspect that a 2B (OR VERY OLD student model 605, which was more like a 2B, whereas the 606 is a bit more like 3B) slide would have fit that bell section's receiver perfectly.

[Bassboner]

One minor point that doesn't matter much: the Recording with F-attachment bell is 8.5". The Recording w/o F-attachment bell is 8".I've got the latter. I love all my Olds horns. One tuba, one flugathingy and a Recording bone. Really well made stuff that also plays great. A little heavy, but well made.

[bloke]

One minor point that doesn't matter much: the Recording with F-attachment bell is 8.5". The Recording w/o F-attachment bell is 8".I've got the latter. I love all my Olds horns. One tuba, one flugathingy and a Recording bone. Really well made stuff that also plays great. A little heavy, but well made.

I've seen variation in Olds bell diameters in the same model, and also some weird things that didn't stay consistent over the years within individual model names.
I've seen some of the Special models with nickel flares and brass stems and other Special models with brass flares and nickel stems. Some of the Studio models were nickel-plated, and others were not. It seems to me that Olds did all sorts of things.

Also like some of the things that were pretty rare like there was a totally hand hammered model of trumpet and trombone is that had a little hammer marks over the entire bell.
They did lots of stuff.

[gocsick]

Olds redesigned the Studio line in 1965... the nickel plate instruments are very different beasts to the older ones with nickel silver bell flares.

[bloke]

Olds redesigned the Studio line in 1965... the nickel plate instruments are very different beasts to the older ones with nickel silver bell flares.

...so both the Special AND the Studio were originally two-alloy bell instruments?

and yeah... I always sort of assumed that putting nickel plating on the Studio model Olds and the creation of the King nickel plated Tempo were attempts to chase the popularity of the nickel plated Conn Connstellation models with nickel plating.

The Conn and King had clear lacquer over their nickel plating. I'm thinking the Studio may have featured stainless nickel plating (a nickel-chrome alloy), but I could be wrong.

Of course, when Doc Severinsen showed up with that bright silver-plated Getzen Eterna on the Tonight Show, that was the end of all of those nickel plated instruments.

The King Silver Flair model trumpet had been introduced a couple of years prior to Severinsen taking over, and as soon as he was the band leader and flashed that Getzen, the King model's popularity skyrocketed as well. Schilke had been selling silver plated trumpets for quite a long time, but their instruments were more pricey and showed up less often. Additionally, if any of you have ever had a Schilke vintage trumpet chemically stripped, you will see why (at least I believe is the "why") they generally silver plated their instruments. They were not very pretty without hiding all of the odd mixes and matches of metals that they used to fabricate them.

People have always been embarrassed in regards to vanity, so everyone was claiming (as so many still continue to do) that silver plating (often no thicker than .0004") had something to do with the sound.

[gocsick]

YEah the Studio had a nickel silver bell flare



The opposite of the tricolor Special



I've been on the lookout for a pre-1965 studio on the cheap for a while... but they keep slipping away. I am not enough of a trumpet player to justify spending anywhere near going rate for one. But if I could pick one up for under $250 I would jump on it.

[bloke]

It seems to me that Olds' various models of trumpets (particularly in their last 15 years or so) really weren't all that different from each other - other than color appearance and trim.
If someone is like me - and doesn't buy into different alloys affecting brass instrument resonance very much, they're probably going to sort of view things as I do in regards to that line of instruments.
This isn't to be confused with me (as I do) having a great deal of respect for the quality of the build of those instruments and their good playing characteristics.

I've always thought the Mendez model was particularly handsome.

Olds bass trombones: (sidebar)
Some of their final models of bass trombones were pretty good other than lever ergonomics.
Those nine inch bells bass trombones they built around the early 60s, though, were stinkers, in my opinion. With everything pushed all the way in (whereby they tuned at the playing slide) they wouldn't play anywhere close to up to A=440 pitch (F-L-A-T !!!), they sounded mousy, and their F-attachment bores were only the same bore as the playing slide, rather than at least a half a millimeter larger, which to find them as particularly stuffy.
It's pretty difficult to build a playing-slide tuning bass trombone playing slide that isn't overly heavy, due to the hardware this required to stabilize it, but the Olds slide-tuning playing slides were particularly heavy.
...I have one of those slides, whereby I've adapted a (brought back from the dead and looking like nothing ever happened to it) decades old Yamaha YBL-322 bell section (again, because the Olds 9-inch bell section really really sucks) to mate up with that Olds slide-tuning playing slide. It's really an interesting instrument and - with the Olds bass trombone playing slide also being duo-bore (.554" - .564") the instrument tends to offer a slightly prettier if not covered type of sound (which is probably more appealing to a tuba player type of person). Of course, the .554" top tube bore comes from their "Opera" large bore tenor model.
It is a heavy slide, but - having taken it apart and made it as straight and parallel and co-planar as possible - it works quite well.