Shining Music

Shining Music

Shining Music Finishing metal for musical instruments is a high-end specialty with finicky customers. But, oh, how sweet the sound! By Steve Bjerklie ...

1MB Sizes 7 Downloads 225 Views

Shining Music Finishing metal for musical instruments is a high-end specialty with finicky customers. But, oh, how sweet the sound! By Steve Bjerklie

Anderson also does plating for the aerospace usical instruments are tools musicians use industry, and plates heavy-duty bearings for use in to create or recreate art, or at least try to. railroad locomotives--but Mike calls the plating his But unlike a painter's brush or a sculpture's company does for Conn-Selmer, Yamaha, and other chisel, a musical instrument is also a kind of objet instrument makers "truly high-quality plating." In d'art itself. Moreover, in the hands of a great musifact, Anderson plates and coats metal for most of the cal artist, a musical instrument takes on a kind of instrument-makers in the U.S. personality, which is the result of the artist's skill at Conn-Selmer also does some of its own plating, taking advantage of a particular instrument's physpoints out Rich Breske, communications director for ical qualities. the company. "We do piccolos, sousaphones, you Thus, plating the metal for brass and reed musical name it. But we also contract a lot of business out to instruments is a technical specialty for a very few companies like Anderson, which are very skilled at metal finishers who are willing to spend the time to what they do." plate according to extremely exacting tolerances for Sometimes, Anderson will very finicky customers. "The work with an individual musiplating has to be absolutely cian on a particular finish--the flaw-free," says John Lindstedt, company gold-plated the keys president of Artistic Plating in f~ on Pete Fountain's clarinet, for Milwaukee, Wis. ~ example. Working with musiHis company, which 50 years i; cians isn't Mike Anderson's ago updated techniques dating favorite p a r t of the business, back to the Renaissance to plate t however. and finish sacred objects for the ~.~ "Remember, you're dealing Roman Catholic and Greek .............. with a musician, not an engineer, Orthodox churches, plates and pretty often their opinions mouthpieces for brass instrufor brass and reed instruPlating the metal f, ments and keys for reed instruaren't really practical from the ments is a technical specialty requiring care metal finisher's or instrument and expertise. ments such as clarinets. "The maker's standpoint." biggest thing in this category is Breske explains that there are three basic kinds of the aesthetics. They've got to be perfect," he continues. plating for brass instruments and the reed instruIn Indiana, Anderson Silver Plating was founded ments that have brass bodies, such as saxophones: in 1948 in part to service the needs of the company galvanically applied silver, lacquer, and unfinished. located right across the street from Anderson's Lacquer finishes are the most common--this is a building in Elkhart: Conn-Selmer, Inc., the wellclear finish applied on plain brass, and it creates the known m a n u f a c t u r e r of a wide range of musical gold color most people think of when they think of instruments, everything from student and schoolthe color of brass musical instruments. band instruments to high-end, one-of-a-kind instru"Basically, the thinner the coating, the more 'live' ments such as the trumpets and flugelhorns played the instrument will sound," he says. "We'll tripleby the likes of Doc Severinson and jazz great Clark coat our s t u d e n t i n s t r u m e n t s so the finish won't Terry. Mike Anderson, whose father established the wear through from all the handling and rough treatcompany, says he's plated "everything from piccolos ment a student instrument is sometimes subject to." to tubas." He notes that there's a health aspect to the finish"It's been a real nice business for us, and the peoing, too. "If the plating on a brass mouthpiece wears ple at the musical instrument companies are a good through, you're risking brass poisoning." group of people--honest and sophisticated. There's When asked about the degree of thinness of the still a lot of art and craft in making a musical plating on professional instruments, Breske smiles. instrument play well out the door."

M

52

www.metalfinishing.com

"I do know it, but I'm not telling you. That's one of the secrets of the i n s t r u m e n t maker's business." Mike Anderson calls the thickness of coatings on musical instruments "always a compromise between wearability and price." Lindstedt doesn't play quite so close to the vest. He says the silver or gold plating his company applies to a b r a s s mouthpiece ranges from 20 microinches to "an extremely thick" 200 microinches. "The thickness will give an instrument a slightly different tone, and the tolerances are very, very close," he comments. "I've got a couple of people here who are especially capable, and so they do j u s t about all our mouthpiece plating." Lincoln plates mouthpieces of a company called GSI, which is based in Milwaukee, and plates clarinet keys for Leblanc, another Wisconsin firm, which happens to be owned by Conn-Selmer. Indeed, over the past 40 years there's been tremendous consolidation in the musical-instrument business. "The consolidation in this i n d u s t r y began back in the 1960s. All these individual i n s t r u m e n t companies had their own ways of doing things," he says. "So the mergers and acquisitions was more about

figuring out more efficient ways to promote and distribute the i n s t r u m e n t s of individual manufacturers t h a n it was about j u s t gobbling up companies." U.S. instrument makers and their plating and finishing contractors are also u n d e r p r e s s u r e from changes in public school funding: arts programs such as band tend to be the first on the chopping block when school budgets must be cut. But Breske, for one, isn't pessimistic. "It's given us a chance to point out how valuable music education is, to fund research on how learning to play a musical instrument will improve a student's overall grades, especially in the sciences and in mathematics," he says. An organization called the Music Education Coalition, established by groups such as the National Association for Music Education, the American Music Center, and the American Music T h e r a p y Association, has created a web site, www.supportmusic.com, to share research on the value of music education. "There are so many positives with music education, and no negatives," Breske says. "I think all of us in this business have if a great future."

and it still works great! Electric infrared ovens have been around more than 40 years and the technology is still amongst the most efficient, proven, reliable means to cure coatings. Gas prices are rising. Electric infrared is still 4 times faster than convection. Listen to your grandparents...If it ain't broke, don't fix it!

Blasdel Enterprises, Inc. Since 1982 and still hot! ,,Blasdel

Enterprises~ In¢i

Greensburg, Indiana 800.661.3213 www.blasdel.net Circle 008 on reader information card or go to www.metalfinishing.com/advertisers September

2005

Circle 005 on reader information card or go to www.metalfinishing.conVadvertisers

53