Mike, yes there are some photos of the Eterna cornet before "scratching". I originally purchased this 1973 instrument from an Ebay auction; it came out of a store in Florida. When I got it, the horn looked fairly decent... there were quite a few "dent memories" and a lot of minor "pinging" on the bell & bell bow. There was also some evidence of fairly serious repair around the 3rd slide: the lyre mount had been busted off and (poorly) resoldered as had the 3rd slide water key (leaving big, "black" marks where the solder was gobbed on). The valves were really good however and the horn "spoke" nicely. I had a local shop do some "spot plating" to cover up a bit of the mess around the lyre mount (actually I had them remove the lyre mount and then spot plate).
It came with the original Getzen "plastic thingy" on the 3rd slide; I managed to break that but found that the Selmer ones fit equally well so that "got my by" until I "got lucky" with the Eclipse.
There is a sort of " photo journal" of the Eterna project (courtesy of Leigh's photography skills" that you can access at:
http://www.photobucket.com
Go to album "Tootsall", enter guest password "shredder", then go to sub album "Trumpets" and then "Eterna" (or is it "Getzen"?)... never mind, you'll find it. I took the "before" pictures where it is in silver plate and Leigh took the rest.
There is also a thread here in the TM site where Leigh has discussed the specifics of scratch/brush finish. I believe that he said there is a 3M abrasive pad that he favours.
From discussions with Leigh, the sequence is kind of like this:
1) fix the horn, not worrying overmuch about the silver plating
2) burnish out all of the dents, diimples, bends, wrinkles, creases & etc.
3) reassemble the major components (soldering)
4) remove the silver plating (I think he said this requires a special tanik with some nasty chemicals)
5) polish the horn
6) using tape, protect all the "bits" you want left shiny
7) spend hours with the 3M pad "scratching up" the rest
8) remove the tape & inspect
9) degrease, clean, degrease, clean & degrease again. Wear clean cotton gloves. If in doubt, degrease three more times!
10) plate (or get a good plater to plate for you).
The cleaning aspect is apparently THE major headache with most plated finishes; shortcuts here will show up forever after and cause you to wonder what went wrong.
Oh... and I didn't do the finishing! Leigh can take ALL the credit for that job. I just had to live with his jokes (check out the photobucket account) and the terribly slow shipping service getting the blamed thing back into the country!
Here is the link to the previous discussion:
http://www.trumpetmaster.com/forums/...?t=703&start=0