Art the process of fixing that leadpipe is really something!!

I really appreciate that you show your errors, we all make mistakes and it's important to know that things rarely go as planned!

Art, I am loving your videos. Did some instrument repair work a while ago and getting back into it now. It's so respectable that you show when things DON'T work out just as much as when they DO. Watching you correct the issue you had with higher temp silver solder was so educational. Thanks for such great informative videos!

Amazing work.....as always!

Since I mostly repair old/junk instruments, I often have to silver solder cracks (and at one time I succeeded to make a new leadpipe for a vintage saxhorn). From my experience, making the split a bit larger and wider helps, I generaly bevel the split edges to make a flat V form... the solder flows and sticks more easily. The only drawback is the risk of solder flowing inside of the tube. Dipping the end of the part in water is a great idea ! I sometimes use a similar method: I soak a rag with water and I wrap it around the solder joints to protect... also useful for unsoldering large solder joints on a sousa or tuba without unsoldering every brace and flange around.

Thanks for telling us something new as always. Good luck teachers, good health to you and your family

I think the difficulty getting the silver solder to melt and flow (10:20) is due to the other end being in water: the whole thing is cooling off very effectively. Better to do it dry so the part can get warmer. EDIT: I guess I should have waited for 10:43 to make my comment! The clamp takes a bit of heat, too, but the water is the real culprit here.

Really interesting. I'd never really thought about it since I've never seen this type of damage, but yeah. The leadpipe has to have a taper of some sort. Drilling it out with a reamer would be ridiculously labor intensive compared to just brazing together some sheet metal with the taper built in. You have to smooth out the exterior of the tubing either way, and that's dramatically faster.

I'd like to see you do a video on patches.

I'm really curious about your reason for using white buffing compound instead of Tripoli. Is it because of the silver solder itself?

If you ask for a file card at a big box hardware store they will tell you to try Staple's or Office Depot.