trickg

Thanks for the reply Larry. All I was trying to point out is that by using a material such as Cerrosafe, even with some inconsistency, you are going to wind up with something that is much easier and probably much more accurate than doing the thing with the round bar stock.

Mikey, it could be that the two backbores appeard so similar because they were.

tom turner

Kanstul has done some wonderful and innovative things to improve the trumpet player's "tools" that no one else seemed willing to invest a half-million bucks to do.

Their prices have always been competitive and will remain so in the future. They launched their CNC mouthpieces, developed at great cost, at a real steal to get the buzz goin' on them. Now is simply the time to bring the prices up where they belong . . . and will still remain a great price vs. what you get.

For those who want to "steal" one . . . there's still a couple of days left to order at the into prices. GO FOR IT!!!

Thanks Kanstul for taking the lead . . . and hope you survive for another 100 innovative years!

Sincerely,

Tom Turner

Thevor

Making a part seems to be simple mathematics; a chunk of brass that cost a few bucks is turned by a fancy machine that only takes a few minutes to make the shape, which adds a couple more dollars, right? So why charge so much?

Take a look at unseen and less than obvious things it takes to produce a finished MP out of a cheap piece of brass:

A Laser Scanner for Reverse Engineering and training for the operator of the Scanner plus the increased value of the employee who has such a skill (increased wages) the cost of the machine unknown

The Scanned program is then imported into CAD/CAM (Computer Aided Design & Machine program) so that it can be translated into machine language (G-Code or M-Code for the Mazak) The CAD operator and CAM operator need extensive training, not to mention the computers and office space to do the work, including telephones, internet services and even someone to clean the bathrooms. $250,000 for a Mazak Turning Center with computer controls is reasonable.

Take into account, there are trials parts to make sure the product is like the original..... called prototyping. Changing the program may take several times between engineering, programming and the machinist to get a first article.... a part good enough to put into production.

Prep time for the MP, which includes ordering raw stock, saw cutting the pieces for handling in the lathe (someone has to do all this stuff including purchasing agents, secretaries (she pays the bills later on) and the saw shop guy handling the raw stock..... all time that you can't see in the part.

Don't forget the tooling cost. Each part may use several types of cutting bits, tooling and special tapered drills just to make one part. Carbide bits, special order tooling and high speed drills cost a lot of money.

Now who's paying for the lathes electricity, the coolant in the lathe (which keeps the part from warping) and cleaning the lathes after a full day of production... can't have a $30/hour machinist doing this.... hmmm someone else employed maybe?

For the machinist, he has to know set-ups (each part has different set ups and programs) and the proper tooling for each job. Once the part is turning, to be of any value, he'll watch the tolerances, the speeds and feeds of the spindle, which can make or break whether parts come out within tolerance. It takes time to complete one side then rotate the part and hold it on the other end, in machine lingo, it's a second op (or second operation) You simply can't make the part in just one pass from one direction, essentially the chuck (the holder) is in the way for the tool (cutter) to complete the part. So it must be rotated..... time, plain and simple... the more time, the more cost to the manufacturer.

Ahhh, then the magic word, tolerances, a part with tight tolerances +/-.001 (that’s 3 times thinner than the average human hair) takes longer to produce. Time again. I don't know how MP are manufactured but I'm sure some final finish is added... buffed or semi-polished before sent to plating?

Once out of the machine, the part is then deburred. (The sharp edges that the lathe has left have to be removed)

More prep time for the plating, which includes the acid dip and hanging the parts. It’s not just someone throwing parts into a vat of silver. Once finished, they are stamped, polished and packaged. Packing those little things doesn’t come free, it cost the manufacturer. Shipping depends on who pays for that too.

Other unforeseen cost; let’s say someone is looking for a MP, he emails a question, someone must take the time to write back. Let’s say you call and have several questions, the secretary is involved, then the person answering the technical questions…. both those people involved are costing the company an hourly wage.

For simplicity, let’s say there were only 10 people total involved in making a MP and they made an average of $20/hour ($10/hour for low end employees and $30/hour for top end) each person makes $5.00/hour in benefits from the company. i.e. insurance, vacation time, holiday pay and etc…. (that’s cheap, especially for California) This is the labor portion of making the MP, not the manufacturing cost of doing business. (I have mentioned some of them above)

As you can see, the price of a “cheap” piece of brass can add up quickly….. thus the quandary for the seller between price and what the consumer will pay for the product. They HAVE to make a profit to stay in business but can't gouge the customer either or there will be no business after a while. It's a balance for the business, who carries all the risk of buying and maintaining equipment. As well as, keeping his people busy and happily employed.

$135 for a MP that has hours of time invested per part seems reasonable to me.

Larry Gianni

Hi All,

Tom T.

Thanks for saying so concisely what it took me 2 long, arduous posts to try to communicate. You said it in a ' Nutshell ". I’m just trying to give credit when credit is deserved.
Having been associated with the Calicchio trumpet line and being able to see how a trumpet is made , gave me great insight into how hard it is to make a top of the line trumpet and how easy you can have a “ bone pile “ of brass parts if your not careful.
That‘s why I applaud any instrument company (I also admire the Schilke line for keeping attention to detail as a priority and putting out consistent, top of the line, brass products and mouthpieces from it conception in 1957 and never resting on it’s laurels) that strives to put out a quality product and not just worry about how many get shipped that day.


Mike and Trickg,

I understand your posts about how easy a resin or plastic polymer quick drying compound would be in making dupe’s of backbores’s and leadpipes. I also had the same thoughts when I first say the procedure of manually getting the measurements for a leadpipe dupe using a digital depth gauge and small , round pieces of metal, .002 thick at .001 increments round ( .468 x .002 round , .467 x .002 round ) attached to a ¼ thick about 8 inches long attached to the gauge. I brought up the subject of a resin or polymer that could give you a negative or a tapered cylinder and Zig explained to me his exploits in the past using all types of these compounds and seeing how off the results were when double checked. To invest a lot of money making dupe backbores and leadpipe off of a bad mold is ‘the kiss of death “for this kind of stuff. After he told me, it made a lot of sense.

If you did get a resin or platic polymer copy of the backbore or leadpipe what then. I invested in a set of top of the line digital calipers , digital micrometers and digital depth gauges and assoc. The 3 cost me over $1400.00, not including the other attachments that you buy separately.

If you could measure by hand every, say, .005 this. on a negative of a backbore or even a worse leadpipe, then you would have to guess at the numbers in between. I've measured the crooks on trumpets, bells and tuning slides to compare vintage versus new models. If I measure one point on a vintage from the outside and mark it. Take the same measurement on the new and mark it, lets use .475 (OD), for example, and it's in a different spot, on each one, then what?

All that tells me is that the two individual bells crooks or tuning slide crooks are different. No how? not why? Not which is better? not why the maker did what he did?
Which one was intentional and which one is wrong? not why if it’s different why it was changed?, what should the real number be?, wonder both are wrong an a third one has different numbers? See what I mean.
Secondly, if I'm in business selling exact duplicates, then they better be exact duplicates or the finicky trumpet public will be flooding the phones with problems and complaints, probably all about a couple .001 here and a couple .001 there, a feeling when they play it.

Mouthpieces come with an array of inherent problems that the brass playing public brings to the table, so I wouldn't want to anger the trumpet community by not giving it the best shot possible.

As you probably know, some think mouthpieces are a “snake oil “of cures and when it doesn’t work out as expected, there's hell to pay by the mouthpiece maker.

I’m not trying to beat a dead horse, so sorry if I went one to long.

“Backbore Comparator:

I was asked this question privately, but why not share with us all. Why on the backbore comparator des it show the backbore as having steps to it when we all know it cylindrical, smaller opening ( throat ) to bigger ( end of backbore ) , cut smoothly. ?

On the backbone comparator, a ruby tipped, very small rod is placed in the backbare after the mouthpiece is placed and secured on a perfectly balanced granite platform top, with the rim placed on the table so the backbore is facing straight up in the air. The ruby tipped tool takes the measurement by making a circular motion ( like it is following a spring down the back of the mouthpiece ) and measurements are taken all along the each and every point as the tool spirals it’s way down and then back up again, checking itself as it goes. Imagine a big “slinky “, resting on its end. And the coils represent all the points of measurement made by the comparator as it winds down and back up the backbore.

Why the backbone comparator shows a stepped out come is it’s giving you the measurement at one point, on a vertical axis, all the way up and down the backbore, like you drew a line from the throat exactly plumb (level) to the end of the backbore. That what the comparator puts out on the screen.

Rest assured the backbores are not cut that way, but at this pint the comparator does and will need more time to fine tune the programming so that a 3d object can be represented on a 1D screen.

Kanstul Comparator Trivia:

The mouthpieces that were first used by Kanstul for the NY Bach and MT V. Bach were all originals furnished by a well known, NY brass instrument collector of not only mouthpieces but of pre and post war Besson and Bach trumpets .

His name is Hal Oringer. Some of you may know the name. He has over 200 Besson trumpets and flugelhorns alone, all with original cases and mouthpiece.
His collection of vintage Bach trumpets is also quite extensive.
Check out dillonmusic.com and go to friends and they have a whole section of pictures of Hal trying trumpets.

Again sorry Mikey and Trickg for beating dead horse. If I went on to long, I apologize.


Larry

Tootsall

Hi Larry. Sorry about that...I sort of missed it! Anyway...I think that Thevor has pretty well covered the cost inputs directly related to mouthpieces (I told him to change the word "steel" for the word "brass"! LOL). The one thing that he missed is the old "supply and demand" equations from economics. The lower the price of something, the higher the volume that the market will absorb; the higher the price, the lower the volume that can be sold. At the same time, the lower the demand for something is, the more costly each unit is to produce in order to amortize the fixed costs (machine purchase, training, office overhead etc). As we know from comparing mass produced trumpets with hand-made ones, this has quite a significant effect. Let's look at building bicycles for an example (I would have used building cedar strip canoes since that's what I based my small business model on when I did my management degree but I forget the numbers...still the example holds true).

If you can make a bicycle with $25 in raw materials plus $50 in "direct labor" inputs (manpower per bicycle), and it costs you $100,000 per year to keep your shop open and running (lots of expensive tools to depreciate and replace) ... the equation for the cost of bicycles is "Total Cost per bike" = $50 + $25 + ($100,000/number of bikes sold).

Then if you make 1,000 bikes per year, then the cost of each bike is going to be $50+$25+$100 = $175.

Now, you want a profit margin of 40% (more if you have a long "distributor chain, less if you sell direct) so the selling price must be $175/0.6 = (roughly) $300. (Generally speaking, profit ratios are based on selling price, not cost price.)

However, you have done a marketing study and determined that if you can drop your price to $250, you could sell 2,000 bikes. Now the unit cost is $50 + $25 + ($100,000/2000) = $50 + $25 + $50 = $125. Your profit margin will be 50%! But making that many bikes might lower your quality and increase warrantee costs!

In example 1, the profit will be 1,000 X ($300-$175) = $125,000. In example 2, the profit is 2,000 X (250-125) = $250,000.

Let's take a 3rd example.... a completely hand made, top of the line bike.
The component cost could easily run to $300 (the component makers have exactly the same set of equations to work through...deraileurs, brakes, seats, etc). You put in greatly increased amounts of labor per unit so that is another $250 (hand welding and brazing to reduce stress, hand finishing of weld joints, increased inspection and rework to get it "RIGHT"). Total fixed overhead might be slightly less (reduced amount of costly machinery and smaller shop). Let's say $75,000 for annual overhead. The problem is that you can only sell 200 bikes a year in this price range. So the total cost of production will be $300 + $250 + ($75,000/200) = $925. If you want to earn $250,000 per year, you will have to sell the 200 bikes at a profit of $1,250 per unit, or a selling price of $2,175 each! How many do you think the market will absorb at that price? (Olympic funding organisations not included! ) If you are willing to accept $125,000 in profits per year, then you could drop your price to $925 + $ 625 = $1,550 (does this sound like a "25% off clearance special" or what?)

Now, what does the general consumer see? He sees a bike with some fancy components and figures it should sell for maybe 2X what the "el cheapo, Sears and Roebuck version" costs. He doesn't SEE the manpower (which is high cost because it is specialized...the law of supply and demand holds true with manpower as well as machines), the added hours (due to reduction or elimination of jigs, mass production runs, effect of large inventory of finished items). He doesn't realize that the "little guy" doing the one-off stuff has either build all year around while absorbing the costs (and bank money isn't free) until he can move the items and recover his inputs (vs the negotiation and buying power of the large, mass producer who might be able to strongarm their suppliers or distributors into covering those inventory costs) OR, hire workers for a mad scramble each spring and then lay them off in the winter (how many of those highly skilled workers will stick around each year?). The consumer can't figure out why he can't pick that fancy bike up "for maybe $500 or $600" and he gets angry...probably cooks up a dozen reasons why it can't be worth what the manufacturer is charging (sounding familiar?).

That is one of the problems of high end, customized stuff that requires a lot of custom work....the cost of the work jacks up the price to where only a few can afford it! At the same time, the true connesieur who can afford it is willing to pay the price to have "the best". So what can the manufacturer do?

Well, he has three choices...he can stay with the custom models and adjust his price so that the market will absorb only the volume he is capable of producing each year (custom horn makers)...or he can start bringing in jigs and machine tools and start "crankin' 'em out by the thousands" and "sell to the masses" (Yamaha, UMI, Jupiter), OR he could get almost entirely out of the retail end of things and broaden his shop capabilities to do small runs of similar items (not necessarily bikes...maybe trikes? wheelchairs? jogging walkers for babies?) That helps keep the shop warm and humming all year around, keeps his highly skilled, loyal, "pride in their workmanship" workers busy all year around, and reduces the hassles of trying to run a distribution and retail operation. (Zig strikes again...let Flip and Alex and Lee and Boosey Hawkes have the headaches!) My mother used to say "Cobler, stick to thy last"

Sorry if all of this is already obvious to you....I know it's not directly related to the question you raised. But it kind of "started flowing" once I got into the "volume vs price" aspect. I used to laugh at "economics"...I figured that an "economist" was right down there next to politicians in terms of respectability. But when I had to upgrade my skills with things like finance, marketing, cost accounting, business strategy, etc.; (I was laid off back in the early 80's and by then had learned that there was a heck of a lot of "skills" that engineering hadn't prepared me for). I could see that there really are some pretty darn logical "rules of economics". Leigh and I have chatted a bit about this sort of thing since I have a "curiosity interest" (ie..I'm NOT thinking of starting my own business!) in what makes small companies tick and how their owners and managers can keep those companies at whatever size they choose (rather than letting the market "run away with them" to their eventual ruin or loss of control).

So the bottom line is...."custom isn't cheap for a set of very good reasons". You get what you pay for. And to compliment Thevor on his description of machining costs (which he is more qualified than I to comment on).

Larry Gianni

Wow,

Hey TM - do we have some smart guys , Thevor and Tootsall, in this group or what. Are you sure they play trumpet, that usually kills brain cells , not adds brain cells.

Hitting 600 members is great, but having these 2 guys makes up for any other 598 guys out there.

Hey wait a minute, I left you and me out.

OK 596 guys out there.

Wait I forgot Noel and Mikey and Dbacon and MPM and Wiseone2 and Tom Turner and trickG and...Oohhh !!!

OK , I'll shut up know !!!

" Youuu have a gift, Yes, Youuuu have a gift "

Larry

Build a trumpet site and they will come - TH who ?????

Bruce Lee

On behalf of the guy that brought us the "alpha angle", using his original design program, please visit this link to see just a few faces of trumpet players that have found extreme satisfaction by playing trumpet mouthpieces created by a true innovator in mouthpiece design: http://www.grmouthpieces.com/players.htm

GR does not copy nor clone the mouthpieces that he manufactures. Instead, he uses a design process which he spent years developing to create each and every mouthpiece that he produces. InteGRity is so important to him that he won't even consider using a mouthpiece blank that infringes upon the trade dress rights that legally protect his competitors.

While you are visiting the GR website, please take the time to further educate yourself about one of the most valuable tools that we use in pursuing our art.

As the GR team continues to grow, there are more and more places that you can consult to help you choose a mouthpiece that is right for you. I have been involved with GR from the beginning, and I would be delighted to offer my assistance to help guide anyone interested in improving their playing by choosing a more efficient mouthpiece, using the experience and knowledge that I have gained through my relationship with GR.

Best always,
Bruce

Mikey

Oh, Jeez....................

richtom

Thank you, Bruce. For over two years I have been enjoying your intelligent answers and offerings to the various trumpet websites.
GR is indeed a major innovator and since I went up to see him nearly two years ago, my playing has never been better. It will be just a matter of time before more of the really "big guns" start singing the praises of GR's mouthpieces.
You certainly know more about this than I do, but I have been told of some the monster players who have had GR work with them. The names I been told who have been up there lately would shock many, but I will not even hint at them. Time will show who they are.
I see nothing wrong with a clone of a good product because after all, Bach mouthpieces have been cloned or "improved" upon for years, but major innovation is altogether something else.
Sometimes there is something new under the sun.


PS. I am by day, a licensed United States Customs Broker and I see quite a bit of copyrighted items come in legally. I pray I never see the day of cheap Chinese clones of great mouthpieces come into the country. That is where I would draw the line at cloning.

Larry Gianni

DELETED BY AUTHOR FOR NOT HAVING ANY INFORMATION RELEVANT TO MAKING YOUR TRUMPET PLAYING LIFE ANY BETTER OR MORE ENJOYABLE !!!

lg