I thought that this particular venue would be a good testing ground to see if there were indeed some interest , or if I actually had the ability to make a potentially boring, tiresome subject interesting enough for anyone else want to read it.
I could start the narration with something clever like, " Long ago in a factory far, far away ...", but that`s probably a little cheesy.
I completed graduate school in 1978, and entered the " employ " of Robert Boudreau`s American Wind Symphony Orchestra in Pittsburgh , Pennsylavania. I received a stipend of $1000.00 for a four and a half month tour that started in Pittsburgh and ended in Selma, Louisiana. Having met a wonderful young flutist from Wisconsin, I had no intention of returning to Illinois. I took up residence in Kenosha, Wisconsin and was able to get employment with the G. Leblanc Corporation. Because I had a masters in french horn performance and had a pretty decent performance resume ( I had also played two seasons with the Civic Orchestra of Chicago) I thought that I would have a good chance to get a job at the Holton Company, a division of Leblanc and maker of the well known Farkas line of french horns.
I ended up working in the buffing room at another Leblanc division, the Martin Band Instrument Company. So, for forty hours a week I had the privilege of standing in front of a buffing wheel and buffing aluminum Vachiano trumpet mutes. As I became more proficient I was given the responsibility of buffing Vachiano trombone mutes. All of those student loans that I had taken out were becoming due, so that generous wage of $ 4.00 per hour was really coming in handy, and after my thirty day grace period was over my pay jumped to $4.10 per hour.
After a few months I began buffing trombone bells and eventually worked my way into bell bending, assembly, testing and annealing trumpet bells. I had actually worked my way into a good relationship with the plant manager and was being groomed to be a foreman.
I learned that the Holton Company had been on an extended strike. Many of the machines that had been used at the Holton plant in Elkhorn had been moved to the Martin plant in Kenosha, some of which I had the opportunity to learn how to operate. One machine in particular was the Boromatic, a machine that bored out the valve casings on a trumpet and did the initial boring prior to the honing of the valve casings and lapping of the pistons.
When the strike had been settled french horns spewed forth from the Holton plant at an accelerated rate in order to complete back orders that had accumulated. It was during this time that Holton`s reputation was severely damaged. The International Horn Society had sent out a survey to horn players asking about the horns people played and, among other questions, what people did or did not like about their horns. Holton did poorly . Jon Crist, vice president of national sales, was a horn player who had connections with a famous horn repairman and maker of custom leadpipes. He showed the results of the survey to Vito Pascucci, the owner and chairman of the board of the G. Leblanc Corporation. Vito was once Glenn Miller`s personal repairman and had started the Leblanc Corporation from a small shop in Kenosha to a major corporation . He really was most concerned about quality.
Jon suggested that since all the Holton instruments were warehoused in Kenosha at the Martin Company , and a horn player worked at Martin, that the horns be inspected a second time.
I was told that Vito`s brother-in-law, the quality assurance manager, was going to meet with me and go over a Farkas horn with me and ask me my impressions. I sat in a small office and was handed a new H 179 and told to look it over and see if I could find anything wrong with it. The first thing I noticed was that the valve caps were only on about a quarter turn and were sticking up it the air with most of the threads from the casing showing. I laughed a bit and asked why he was toying with me, that the cap fit was so poor that I could see from across the room that there was a problem. He looked very surprised and a little offended. Other observations were that the valves were noisy, that there was end play and side play and that a number of slides did not fit very well and were hard to adjust. I played the horn a bit but was distracted by the racket the valves were making.
The next day I was given ten or twelve horns to reinspect and write comments. I pretty much got writer`s cramp and all of the horns were returnrd to Holton for rework.
More later.
