I finished my trumpet today!!!!!! It was a long weak, but it is finally complete. Some people were completed at lunch today. I finished mine at the end of the day. Dr. Burdick is almost done. He will be able to finish tomorrow afternoon. This morning I started by engraving my ferules, and the seem busted cleanly down the center. I tried to repair it, but it melted. I was sorely pissed. Mr. Barclay came to my rescue and made me a new one. I was very thankful. I eventually finished all of my ferules and engraving them. After that I had to friction fit the trumpet together. The trumpet is actually not held together by any solder. I was extremely suprised. I was extremely excited today when the Canadian graduate student finished his trumpet and began to play. It was music to my ears. It made me want to finish more. My work schedule was redoubled. I have chosen my paper topic. It is about how these workshops recreate the workshops of Nuremberg. I will also will find other types of workshops to sea how successful they are, etc. I will also write about the anthropological aspects of the workshop hierarchy, the similarities and differences. Tomorrow all of the workshop members are going out to lunch. Dr. Burdick may be finished in time, but we are not sure. I am excited about the future. I am contemplating applying for a Fulbright scholarship to France to study natural and modern trumpet. I am extremely excited.
Today was a very productive day. I started out the day with some fear
that I would be able to get everything done. Doing something for the
first time is difficult because of the groundlessness-the unknown. As
we get closer to the end, it becomes more crucial to get the task done
right the first time since so much work on a piece has been done
already.
I completed the decoration on the ferrules and they came out well.
Then, I worked on filing out the solder bumps on the garland with a file
and sanded it out to a nice finish. Now, I fitted the garland over the
bell and Bob said I needed to burnish the bell more to stretch the metal
out to meet the edge of the garland. So, it was back to the bell
mandrel and burnishing. It went easier than I thought it might.
However, I had one crinkle in the bell that had folded over and it
opened up. I tried soldering it but it opened up when I burnished over
this spot. So, at this point, it was time for lunch with Richard, Jake,
Jen, Randy, Caru, and Jake at the Chinese Restaurant-very good.
Now, Bob helped me complete the solder. So, with that done, I
turned my
attention back to the garland for decoration. I marked out the spots
and punched/drilled holes into 30 equidistant spots along the top of the
garland. Then, I cut out 30 darts. Some were terrific and some were in
need of a little more loving. I file out the back of the drilled holes
and smoothed out the darts with a file. Then, I tried to etch on some
lines to the garland. For a first attempt, it wasn't bad. The final
step was to add circle-shaped stamps between each dart.
Time was now running out for the day and I still had to polish the bell
before attaching the garland. It looked like a daunting task at 5:00
p.m. The bell had a lot of imperfections and it seemed hopeless.
However, I took some 320 grit sand paper and things started looking up.
After much work, I switched 400 grit sand paper and it started looking
great. I was really surprised and pleased. Of course, the bell still
has some "extra loving" in dings, wrinkles, etc. But, now it looks very
good.
So, tomorrow will be a very busy day. I have to finish the decoration
on the pommel, attach the garland to the bell, get soft metal out of the
bows, polish the long tubes, cut and swage all the tubes for
construction, and then put the whole thing together. The last thing to
do is to add the rope at the end. And all of this in only four hours.
Wish me luck!!