Ross

Anyone ever get some plating done from these folks Anderson Silver Plating: Band Instrument Services

Seems professional enough. I was thinking about having them gold plate the inside of the bell on my Strad. I have always wanted that modification.

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ecarroll

Ross,

They have been the industry standard for many, many years. You'll have to have the horn carefully prepped before sending, however.

Best,
EC

nickpasternack

Doctor valve uses them for his re plating and re finishing. Needless to say, his work is top notch , so i ould go with them.

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Its not that i lack in intelligence, its that you lack in stupid.....

Schilke S42L 2005
1938 King cleveland
Bach Tr300(in process of heavily modding)
Conn circus bore cornet 1890 (restored)
J.W. pepper and son shepherds crook cornet 1895(ish)
Getzen Eterna Flugel

Bonasa

I think the strongest testimonial to the quality of Anderson's work is the prominent professional technicians who send their valve plating work there: Steve "Dr. Valve" Winan and Charlie Melk of Charlie's Brassworks come to mind immediately, and I'm sure there are scores of others. Let's face it, the reputation of Winan and Melk for their restoration work is on the line with every valve job they take on, so they're not going to trust something as crucial as valve plating--which must be done to extremely close tolerances--to a shop that is not consistently up to the task. If it's good enough for Dr. Valve and Charlie Melks, I would not hesitate to send any horn to Anderson's.

lmf

Ross,

According to Dallas Music:

Quantity and Quality


"Schilke instruments are plated by Anderson Plating in Elkhart, Indiana, a large company that does the plating for many musical instrument manufacturers, including Bach. They have been since the beginnings of the Schilke Company when Anderson was rather small."

Whether or not that still occurs, it shows that another instrument maker t has worked with Anderson Plating based upon its reputation of quality services.

If I needed a horn replated, I would not hesitate to use Anderson Plating. But as mentioned earlier, your horn should be prepared as best it can before shipping it to Anderson Plating.

Best wishes,

Lloyd

mike ansberry

I had a complete valve job including honing, plating, and lapping done on my old Olds L-12 flugel a couple of years ago. I sent the horn to them directly and they did the entire job for about $100 less than many of the brass gurus. They did an outstanding job. The valves are still like new. Smooth as butter.

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"Music is a fire in your belly that has to come out of your mouth, so you'd better put a horn in the way before someone gets hurt" (paraphrase of Bleeding Gums Murphy)

Eclipse MR in scratch gold
Olds Super/Ultrasonic
Conn 40B
Leblanc Paris large bore with Bach mouthpipe
Bach 37
Olds L-12 Flugel
Benge Picc
Buescher Cornet made in 1914
American Standard (King?) beginner trumpet (crap)

Willing to provide a good home for a stray Conn 48B or Olds Recording

Bonasa

One question, Mike: did they also include a valve alignment in their work? It seems to me that the only thing I'd be buying from the brass gurus who subcontract their plating to Anderson's is a valve alignment. I guess I'd be inclined to have Anderson's do the plating, at $115 per valve, and then have an alignment guru like Bob Reeves do an alignment, at $150, if necessary. I'm just wondering whether new plating always necessitates an alignment.

Can anyone out there shed any light or share any experience in this area?

Sol

One warning about Anderson: I had a Bach 37 silver plated by them last year. The cost was around $350 ($50 less than initially quoted). I thought that this included all of the work that the horn needed. This price was arrived at after getting the horn back, not after examination of the horn. Anyway, the silver plating is fine. They did silver plate the inside of the horn, as well as the insides of the valve casings. What they didn't do was to take out the dents. Below is an excerpt of an e mail that was sent to me by "John" at Anderson's:

On to the other stuff. Put between $800 and $1000 dollars insurance on
the carton. This is pretty much the industry standard for a silver plated
trumpet and will only cost you about $5 for each 800 in insurance. If the
horn is prepped and ready to go when we receive it you are looking at $75 -
$100 to plate it in silver. Will take about 2 weeks. If we need to strip
the old finish, buff, polish, degrease, clean, prep, and plate it is around
$400 and turn around time is about 6 weeks. Is there anything else we can
help you with?
Have a great week!
John
Anderson Silver Plating

Now, I thought that "prepping" included the dent work. Evidently, it did not. So you need to keep this in mind when sending a horn directly to Anderson's, instead of through a repair technician.

By the way, they were very pleasant to deal with, and I have no beefs with the quality of the plating.

lmf

Sol,

Maybe Anderson Plating thought those dents were "badges of courage" and left them in.

Thanks for letting folks that the horn needs to be as "dent-free" as possible, as it may come back a beautifully plated horn with dents included.

Best wishes,

Lloyd

michaelm2

Anderson plates all the horns from Bach, they are across the street from the Bach plant in Elkhart.

Mike