The Dent Eraser


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Posted by Daryl hickman on January 12, 2002 at 13:24:44:

I have to admit, I was skeptical at first, But what traspired afterward has made me a believer.

Yesterday, the Renton Technical College Musical Instrument Repair Program received a vist from Jimmy Edwards, the Northwest District Sales rep for United Musical Instruments (Conn, King, Benge, Armstrong, etc.).

Jimmy came to the college to demonstrate and allow my students to play with a new tool called the "Dent Eraser." When he arrived, he walked in with a standard plastic clarinet case embossed with "C.G. Conn Dent Eraser" in gold letters.

Jimmy asked for a baritone or a tuba that had dents in it so he could demonstrate this new tool. I gave him a Conn Euphonium that I had just Karate chopped a few dents in. One about in 1" deep in the bottom bow and one about .5 deep in the branch opposite the bell (you know the one that is impossible to get a ball and steel mandrel to).

He pulled a super heavyduty magnet and a few steel balls out of the clarinet case, dropped the ball down the horn and placed the magnet on the body (folks this is no car speaker magnet, it is strong). He rubbed the magnet over the dented area causeing the ball to burnisher out the dent with near flawless results. Total time of repair - 10 seconds!

I had to give it try. We pulled out a Holton sousaphone body and it worked wonders. We tried it on saxophone as well. Anyone who as tried to work on barisaxes knows how hard it is to reach dents in the stack, this solves that problem. Also, it didn't seem to harm the lacquered or silver plated surfaces that we tried it on.

I believe this tool will be an asset to those of us who work on large instruments and need to reach those dents that were inaccessible without disassembly. Especially the instruments that belong to schools that can't afford to have them taken apart.

Is it the cure all - no. It doesn't do a perfect job where there are bow guards - the brass is just too thick. However it worked pretty well on the sousaphone branches that we tried it on. For those of you that do overhauls, it worked incredibly well on those hard to reach areas of long bows, especially after annealing.

It is only limited by the few large sizes of dent balls that come with it. However, the magnet works with any round dent ball and can be used with tapered steel mandrels as well, so it is only limited by the store owner's ability to acquire additional steel balls from your local machine shop.

The cost: It lists for $895.00 from your UMI dealer. If you are interested in ordering one, you can also contact Russ Schmidt at Beaverton (OR) Music. Russ has placed a couple of orders and would be happy to help anyone with their purchase. I believe they can be drop shipped to your location.

If you have any questions, let me know. I'll try to post some pictures on Monday. Daryl



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