When getting a horn ready to be relacquered or silver-plated, there are several steps that go into it’s preparation. One of these activities is machine buffing.

Patience and a steady hand are required to thoroughly machine buff an instrument without harming the horn. Care must also be taken to protect any engraving or embellishments on the instrument. We train for hours on our own inventory, before repair technicians are allowed to work on customer instruments.

We also have a dedicated buffing room with large-scale machinery and multiple buffing stations. One of our units is literally two Mercury axels joined together to rotate a shaft. This space and hardware is necessary to handle sousaphones and tubas. It also allows several technicians to work on horns simultaneously.

Before and after machine buffing, hand preparation and finishing techniques are applied. These are also critical to getting the most out of the machine buffing step.