Thevor

This is the 53' Olds Ambassador in the beginning

http://img36.photobucket.com/albums/..._Beginning.jpg

The 53' Olds Ambassador in pieces
http://img36.photobucket.com/albums/..._in_pieces.jpg

A closeup of the pieces
http://img36.photobucket.com/albums/...es_closeup.jpg

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53' Olds Ambassador

Tootsall

Hurry up or I'll start posting pictures myself! HA

Thevor

The horn taking shape

http://img36.photobucket.com/albums/...in_process.jpg

Still in process


http://img36.photobucket.com/albums/...king_Shape.jpg

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53' Olds Ambassador

Thevor

This is the first picture Leigh from First Class Brass sent me of my finished 53' Olds Ambassador

http://img36.photobucket.com/albums/..._preserved.jpg

First, this was never intended to be a restoration. The Olds was pretty beat up and had several dings on the bell. I just let Leigh
"have at it" and do what he wanted and this is the beauty he came up with.

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53' Olds Ambassador

Thevor

Take a look at the tuning slide(s)...... the front slide a traditional Olds and the new slide which is unique to the Eclipse trumpet line.

http://img36.photobucket.com/albums/...s_end_View.jpg

http://img36.photobucket.com/albums/...Finished_2.jpg

So far, three pro-players have played this horn in Leighs shop (yes, they all had permission) and fell in love with it. I'll let Leigh tell you more about how the horn sounds and plays with the dual tuning slides.

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53' Olds Ambassador

Thevor

http://img36.photobucket.com/albums/...s_Finished.jpg

Leigh is a master at his craft and this horn is a testament to that.

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53' Olds Ambassador

Tootsall

You lucky swine! And to think you once purchased a "Bach knock-off". Bah, Humbug!



Edit: "They all had my permission"... you lie like a cheap rug. You didn't even know it was finished! Although I'll admit it makes a better story. hehe.

eclipse trumpets

Hiya George

Just a few words about your horn! This is what we did:-

Took the whole thing back to component parts to repair or resurface each part (its easier to get to everything properly)

The 1st and 3rd slides have been reversed so they could take Eclipse ring and saddle and work like most modern horns do.

The valve section was re-surfaced due to a lot of wear over the years.

The bell was cut into 3 peices and assembled like an eclipse bell with the tuning slide at the back of the bell.
Of course each horn is different, so we must put the same length back into the bell that we have cut out, so the bottom slide length tends to vary a little.
I considered taking away the front tuning,but i wanted to keep as much as i could of the amazing craftwork that originally went into this horn.

Same with the braces!

So what we have here is a horn that benefits from an Eclipse tuning slide which can be used on its own by closing off the front tuning totally and just tuning with the back slide,, creating great slotting.

Or you can reverse the prosess and use only the traditional front tuning, giving you that same olds ambassador feel.

We were very lucky with this model as it worked out that you can actually use both tuning slides together at different lengths of pull to fine tune the instrument and it sounds fantastic.

We have had 3 pro players try it and they all agreed that it was worthy of being used in many of their playing situations (but we already knew that about olds ambassadors anyway didnt we!)

hmmmmm that ended up being more than a few words ha!

Noel will give it a test blow on Monday i hope and let us all have a better explanation of the feel of the horn. The it will wing its way back to Washington State to its master.

Regards

Leigh

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Eclipse Trumpets

Eclipsetrumpets.com

Thevor

I'll be looking foward to Noel's review of the horn.

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53' Olds Ambassador

Sol

Leigh,

Would you mind giving us an idea of the cost (in Pounds, Dollars, Euros or Gold Bullion) of a transformation of an Olds Ambassador?