Background

 A trumpet is a brass wind instrument noted for its powerful

tone sounded by lip vibration against its cup-shaped
mouthpiece.
 A trumpet consists of a cylindrical tube, shaped in a
primary oblong loop that flares into a bell.
 Modern trumpets also have three piston valves as well as
small, secondary tubing that act as tuning slides to adjust
the tone.
 Almost all trumpets played today are B-flat.
 This is the tone naturally played when the trumpet is
blown.
 They have a range between the F-sharp below middle C
to two and a half octaves above ending at B.
 They are comparatively easier to play than other brass
instruments.
 Early "trumpets" were made from the horns or tusks of
animals, or cane.
 By 1400 B.C. the Egyptians had developed trumpets
made from bronze and silver, with a wide bell.
 To make these trumpets, the lost-wax method was used.
 In this process, wax was placed in a cavity that was in the
shape of a trumpet.
 This mold was then heated so that the wax melted away,
and in its place molten bronze was poured, producing a
thick-walled instrument.
 To make the tube of the trumpet, a sheet of metal was
wrapped around a pole and soldered.
 To make the bell, a curved piece of metal shaped
somewhat like an arc of a phonograph record was
dovetailed.
 One side was cut to form teeth.
 These teeth were then splayed alternately, and the other
side of the piece of metal was brought around and stuck
between the teeth.
 Hammering the seam smoothed it down.
 Thousands of years ago 1400 A.D the long, straight
trumpets were bent, thus providing the same sound in a
smaller, more convenient instrument.
 Molten lead was poured into the tube and allowed to
solidify.
 This was then beaten to form a nearly perfect curve.
 The tube was next heated and the lead was poured out.
 The first bent trumpets were S-shaped, but rapidly the
shape evolved to become a more convenient oblong loop.
 One limitation of the trumpet was that it could not be
played chromatically; such that it could not play the half-
step range called the chromatic scale.(musical scale with
12 pitches).
 In 1750 Anton Joseph Hampel of Dresden suggested
placing the hand in the bell to solve the problem,
 Michael Woggel and Johann Andreas Stein around 1777
bent the trumpet to make it easier for the player's hand to
reach the bell.
 The general agreement was that this created more
problems than it solved.
 The keyed trumpet followed, but it never caught on, and
was replaced rapidly by valve trumpets.
 The first attempt to invent a valve mechanism was tried by
Charles Clagget, who took out a patent in 1788.
 The first practical one was the box tubular valve invented
by Heinrich Stoelzel and Friedrich Bluhmel in 1818.
 Joseph Riedlin in 1832 invented the rotary valve, a form
now only popular in Eastern Europe.
 It was Francois Perinet in 1839 who improved upon the
tubular valve to invent the piston valved trumpet, the most
preferred trumpet of today.
 The valves ensured a trumpet that was fully chromatic
because they effectively changed the tube length.
 An open valve lets the air go through the tube fully.
 A closed valve diverts the air through its short, subsidiary
tubing before returning it to the main tube, lengthening its
 path.
 A combination of three valves provides all the variation a
chromatic trumpet needs.
 The first trumpet factory was founded in 1842 by Adolphe
Sax in Paris.
 It was quickly followed by large-scale manufacturers in
England and the United States.
 Standardized parts, developed by Gustave Auguste
Besson, became available in 1856.
 Today some orchestras are not satisfied with only using B-
flat trumpets.
 Overall, modern trumpets produce high, brilliant,
chromatic musical tones in contrast with the low, powerful,
inaccurate trumpets of the past.

The picture

 The various parts of a trumpet are manufactured in

drawing, hammering, and bending operations.
 In drawing, brass tubing is put over a tapered steel rod
(mandrel), and a die is drawn down its length.
 At various times, the brass parts must be annealed (heat-
treated) to improve their workability.
Raw materials

 Brass instruments are almost universally made from

brass, but a solid gold or silver trumpet might be created
for special occasions.
 The most common type of brass used is yellow brass,
which is 70 percent copper and 30 percent zinc.
 The relatively small amount of zinc present in the alloy is
necessary to make brass that is workable when cold.
 Very little of the trumpet is not made of brass.
 Any screws are usually steel
 the water key is usually lined with cork
 the rubbing surfaces in the valves and slides might be
electroplated with chromium or a stainless nickel alloy
 the valves may be lined with felt; and the valve keys may
be decorated with mother-of-pearl.
Design

 Most trumpets are intended for beginners and are mass

produced to provide fairly high quality instruments for a
reasonable price.
 The procedure commonly used is to produce replicas of
excellent trumpets that are as exact as possible.
 Professional trumpeters demand a higher priced, superior
instrument.
 Once the trumpet is created, the musician plays it and
requests any minor adjustments that might need to be
made.
 The trumpet's main pipe can then be tapered slightly.
 The professional trumpet player will usually have a
favorite mouthpiece that the ordered trumpet must be
designed to accommodate.
The manufacturing process

1. The main tube

The main tube of the trumpet is manufactured from standard
machinable brass that is first put on a pole-shaped, tapered
mandrel and lubricated.

A die that looks like a doughnut is then drawn down its entire
length, thus tapering and shaping it properly.

Next, the shaped tube is annealed—heated to make it

workable.

This causes an oxide to form on the surface of the brass. To

remove the oxidized residue, the tube must be bathed in diluted
sulfuric acid before being bent.

2. The bell

 The bell is cut from sheet brass using an exact pattern.

 The flat dress-shaped sheet is then hammered around a
pole.
 Where the tube is cylindrical, the ends are brought
together into a butt joint.
 Where the tube begins to flare, the ends are overlapped to
form a lap joint.
 To make a rough bell shape, one end is hammered
around the horn of a blacksmith anvil.
 The entire tube is then drawn on a mandrel exactly like the
main tube, while the bell is spun on the mandrel.
 A thin wire is placed around the bell's rim, and metal is
crimped around it to give the edge its crisp appearance.
 The bell is then soldered to the main tube.

3. The valves

 The knuckles and accessory tubing are first drawn on a

 mandrel as were the tube and bell.
 The knuckles are bent into 30-, 45-, 60-, and 90-degree
angles, and the smaller tubes are bent, heat and allow it to
cool slowly(annealed), and washed in acid to remove
oxides and flux from soldering.
 The valve cases are cut to length from heavy tubing and
threaded at the ends.
 They then need to have holes cut into them that match
those of the pistons.
 The knuckles, tubes and valve cases are then placed in
jigs that hold them precisely, and their joints are painted
with a solder and flux mixture using a blow torch.
 After an acid bath, the assembly is polished on a buffing
machine, using wax of varying grittiness and muslin discs
of varying roughness that rotate at high speeds.

4. Assembly

 The entire trumpet can now be assembled.

 The side tubes for the valve slides are joined to the
knuckles and the main tubing is united end to end by
overlapping their ferrules and soldering.
 Next, the pistons are then inserted, and the entire valve
assembly is screwed onto the main tubing.
 The mouthpiece is then inserted.
 The trumpet is cleaned, polished, and lacquered, or it is
sent to be electroplated.
 The finishing touch is to engrave the name of the
company on a prominent piece of tubing.