Marshall V. Daut
Well-known member
An update: I am late in posting this follow-up due to a torn rotator cuff and a tear in the biceps tendon incurred working on - what else? - a Model A. It's been kind of hard to use my right arm for the last two months. Thanks to prescription pain drugs (Whoopie!!!), I have partial use again until surgery in early July. So, I addressed something light to work on today, meaning this recalcitrant horn with its burned pole wiring and Mickey Mouse soldering job some knucklehead performed on this poor little horn.
Disassembling the horn to rewire the poles, I counted 56 turns around each one instead of the recommended 40 or 48. I purchased the attached insulated 20 wire and followed nkaminar's good advice and wound each pole 48 times in order to get a more mellow sounding horn instead of a ruptured duck sound, which some repo and poorly-rebuilt original horns have. I also completely unsoldered the four wire connections that were simply twisted and solder "repaired". It was tricky working with this wire and soldering with a quasi-invalided arm, but after a couple failed attempts, the horn rewiring was successful. Boy, howdy, does it sound GOOD!!! Real, REAL good. It's gone from dead in the water to water skiing at 60 mph! It has the throaty sound that you could almost hang a bucket on. The effort and anxiety at trying a new repair were worth the final result. I have three more dead horns that I will repair after surgery recovery. If the sound from those horns is 1/2 as good as this one, I'll be satisfied.
Thanks again to all who provided excellent suggestions. I also thank whoever posted George Sage's "how to" video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80HheWrv2_s. It could have used more close-ups, but was otherwise quite helpful.
Marshall
Disassembling the horn to rewire the poles, I counted 56 turns around each one instead of the recommended 40 or 48. I purchased the attached insulated 20 wire and followed nkaminar's good advice and wound each pole 48 times in order to get a more mellow sounding horn instead of a ruptured duck sound, which some repo and poorly-rebuilt original horns have. I also completely unsoldered the four wire connections that were simply twisted and solder "repaired". It was tricky working with this wire and soldering with a quasi-invalided arm, but after a couple failed attempts, the horn rewiring was successful. Boy, howdy, does it sound GOOD!!! Real, REAL good. It's gone from dead in the water to water skiing at 60 mph! It has the throaty sound that you could almost hang a bucket on. The effort and anxiety at trying a new repair were worth the final result. I have three more dead horns that I will repair after surgery recovery. If the sound from those horns is 1/2 as good as this one, I'll be satisfied.
Thanks again to all who provided excellent suggestions. I also thank whoever posted George Sage's "how to" video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80HheWrv2_s. It could have used more close-ups, but was otherwise quite helpful.
Marshall
