this website is intended to show my work and interests that I have spent over 45 years developing. Now that I’m mostly retired, I have more time to add and edit content here.

I have a passion for learning and sharing the history of the brass instrument industry and the instruments that they produced.  The content here can be accessed through the menus above, leading to gallery pages. The largest areas of content is in the "Museum", each page featuring one or more antique or otherwise historical instrument ranging in age from 40 to 175 years and in "Projects", showing my work.  “History of Makers” is a list of important brass instrument makers for which I present information. “Essays” is a listing of longer articles on related topics. Restoration and preservation have been the focus of my business and I feature just a few jobs from the past.  "Other Projects" are the more unusual and even rather quirky instruments that I have built or modified for customers.  "Replicas" shows some of the historic reproductions that I have built over the years, mostly that I no longer make.

More recently, I've added a section, "Mechanics" where I share some specifics of the job, mostly for your entertainment, but also to communicate to others in the field.  I will continue adding content in all these categories and thinking of new ways of discovering and sharing information.  Let me know if you have any suggestions, corrections or even criticism as long as it's constructive.  I'm sure that there will be errors in fact and judgement contained here, and I am constantly making corrections and additions where possible.

The information presented here is mostly for your entertainment and education and for my desire to share my interests.  It is not for promotion of my services, since I’m largely retired now and work on projects that interest me most.  I’ve only worked on brass (cup mouthpiece) instruments and no woodwind (reed) or other instruments.    

I'm always interested in buying quality and desirable used and antique brass instruments.  Please contact me if you have a single instrument or a whole collection.  I don't do appraisals anymore, mostly because of how drastically the market for used and antique instruments has changed due to the ubiquity of the internet.  If an appraisal is needed for other than estate settlement or similar reasons, I would recommend that you search the internet in general for dealers inventories and specifically eBay (completed items for actual sales prices and not the champagne dreams of unsold items!). 

The bulk of my business had been repairing and maintaining  brass instruments for my customers.  In the course of this work, I try to educate these instrument owners on how to maintain the mechanics with proper cleaning and lubrication.  I can't stress too strongly that good habits will not only facilitate the best performance today, but keep the instrument in good order for many years to come.