View allAll Photos Tagged custombuilt
Custom trike called a whale's tail | images by Altered Art Delmarva | on FB @ www.facebook.com/altereddelmarva
Ghetto built Gibson. Body is made from salvaged hardwood lumber from old industrial pallets. Neck, tuners and bridge from a donor Epiphone SG copy I pruchased off craigslist. Pick ups and electronics from Dragonfire Guitars.
This is my trumpet that was given to me by a good friend of mine from high school. I always wanted a Benge Trumpet...it only took me 20 years to get one.
Elden Benge was only 7 years old when he first fell in love with the trumpet – a love that would turn into a life-long affair for the Winterset, Iowa native. It was also then that he adopted his first hero, the trumpeter of the hometown band. Young Elden persuaded his family to buy a trumpet for him, and he practiced religiously. He began playing professionally when he was 14 and, years later, assumed the role of First Trumpet with major symphony orchestras in Detroit and Chicago.
As a gifted musician, Benge became increasingly dissatisfied with the range of tone available in ordinary mass-produced trumpets. He studied the technical and mechanical aspects of the trumpet in search of ways to improve its playing characteristics. Working with two craftsmen skilled in the construction of the trumpet, Benge began to fashion trumpets in the basement of his home.
Through tireless experimentation, he finally developed his “dream trumpet” . . . an instrument with remarkable clarity, tonal range and easy response. Success was due to a combination of specially designed tapers, extremely precise machining tolerances, and special alloys. But the secret ingredient was meticulous attention to detail.
In 1939 Benge sold his first custom-made trumpet to a fellow trumpeter in the Chicago Symphony. News of the marvelous Benge trumpet spread among professional players and what had begun as an artistic endeavor was soon a thriving business.
Top trumpet players everywhere began to call on Benge to solve their performing problems. By 1952, the demand for the trumpet was so great that Benge retired from active performing so that he could devote all of his energies to his goal of producing the world's finest trumpets.
Benge's instruments defined a new level of performance and quickly became the benchmark by which all others were judged. Designed to satisfy a variety of musical performance styles, Benge trumpets, cornets and trombones continue to meet the ever-changing needs of today's artists.
Such a desirable reputation is possible today through strict adherence to the same attention to detail set forth by Benge in his basement some 60 years ago. Benge upholds this tradition of fine craftsmanship and perfection to create instruments of timeless quality.
So many things on this horn are pinged or bent It's surprising the pinky hook hasn't been deformed. However, it is made of nickel-silver, so it's harder to bend than brass. Buescher's cornets and trumpets would feature pinky hooks shaped almost exactly like this one until the 1950s.
By contrast, the fixed-position third-valve finger ring has been badly deformed, possibly on purpose to accommodate a prior owner's hands. It's made of a wide brass ribbon.
Note the patches on the mouthpipe. The horn still plays like a Buescher from this era, and it plays surprisingly well given its condition.
Buescher continued to configure its post-war horns in what had become a signature style - a main tuning slide curving down from the leadpipe assembly at a leftward angle and entering the third valve on the left, of the third valve slide.
Note the finger ring on the third valve slide. This horn is wrapped much wider than the earlier Custom Built models; there's no problem operating the third valve slide with your right hand fingers.
Some of the earlier Buescher models were wrapped so tightly that players might find it hard to hook a finger through a top-mounted ring and operate the slide. Buescher's answer was to mount third slide rings (if present at all) on the bottom of the third slide tubing sleeve.
Another Buescher signature note is the distinctive shape of the right hand pinky hook. They had looked like that since the middle 1930s.
Note the small metal lug at the valve's tops. That is the "pin", a guide corresponding to a slot cut in the side of the valve casing wall. The valves are bottom-sprung.
The pin valves Buescher installed in its post-war horns appear to be wider and longer than those on earlier Aristocrat and Custom Built models.
Note the valve caps; the are configured in the wide "sheath" style common to Buescher's post war Aristocrat and Custom Built horns.
This horn features bottom-sprung Pin valves, as do all of the Custom Built cornet and trumpet models of the 1930s to the early or mid '50s.
The valves are a bit loose, but the compression's okay with a heavier valve oil.
In fact, it plays freaking great. I can't believe how good these horns are!!
And it tickles me how well it plays considering its banged-up and rotted condition. I'm not sure what plating material Buescher used on its valves, but I've handled a number of Buescher horns with the Pin style valves and often the valves are in better shape than the rest of the horn. They don't seem to wear out very fast.
Temple Stained glass windows backlit with LED light panels. Led panels custom built to design specification
Thin, flat custom shaped lighting for store fixtures
Feel FREE to use this image how you see fit but please give credit to www.nu-wo.com/ on all posts
Heather's bar/stem was custom made using a combination of fillets and TIG welds to get a really specific look. A 38CM 25.4 Nitto B-123 handlebar completes the tight and right track look on Heather's Rockcity and we added a hand-cut 'H' to the back of the stem as a cherry on top for our favorite gal.
1934 Ford Truck built ground up by Ed Riley of Crosby,Tx. This truck has 350 hp Chevy LS1 Motor and weighs 2500. The truck was built to drive on the street, go to the Car Shows, and just have fun.
Note the braces between the leadpipe and bell-tail assemblies.
This horn is substantially heavier than Buescher's Model 228 "Lightweight 400" trumpet, a post-War model that was an exact contemporary of this 215.
Note the main tuning slide's configuration, slung down to enter the third valve to the left of the third valve slide; note also the taper in the bell-tail and where it begins to flare out to the bell - compare this to, say, the Model 234 Aristocrat or the 335 Custom Built horns.
A rare occasion indeed as sister unit 1754 shows up at Semper Shops a couple of weeks after 1752 arrived for rebuild. 1754 receives a new bell, horn and antennae. The stock bell was removed from the end of the long hood. and a MBE bell was installed on the right hand side of the long hood similar to CN GP9 rm units. The stock horn was removed from the cab roof and a MBE casting of a prototypical CN horn was added to the long hood just in front of the dynamic brake housing. The stock Firecracker antennae was removed from the roof of the short hood and a Railflyer Models Sinclair antenna added to the cab roof. 1754 is also a Broadway unit, has sound and is DC...It will also be converted to DCC.
Photo- Jeff Semper