French Horns

Scratchmo · Apr 12, 2016

I recently engraved two sets of valve caps for a pair of custom made french horns and posted these pictures (taken by my client) on a closed group of horn players on Facebook. I got over 300 "likes" and "loves" and so many requests for custom work that I had to keep posting that I'm not accepting orders, etc...

I thought I'd mention it on here just to let everyone know there is an apparently untapped market just with this group. These guys are very serious about their horns and don't mind spending a lot of money for a little extra bling..

Patrice Lemee · Apr 12, 2016

That is beautiful.

GTJC460 · Apr 12, 2016

Nice! Never be afraid of tooting your own horn!

Scratchmo · Apr 12, 2016

GTJC460 said:
Nice! Never be afraid of tooting your own horn!

Ha ha ! Yeah, if I don't do it, who will? That horn ain't gonna blow itself! But seriously, I think a decent engraver could make an entire career just doing valve covers for french horn players, dealers and custom builders. There doesn't seem to be anyone there.

SamW · Apr 12, 2016

Scratchmo, those sure add some class to an already classy instrument. I played one of those from 5th grade through college and enjoyed every minute of it. Never would have thought about engraving the valve caps. By the way, I originated in southwest AR.

diandwill · Apr 12, 2016

SamW said:
Scratchmo, those sure add some class to an already classy instrument. I played one of those from 5th grade through college and enjoyed every minute of it. Never would have thought about engraving the valve caps. By the way, I originated in southwest AR.

Same here! I started when I was 9, played into college then joined the navy and played in the drum and bugle corps. I would never have thought of engraving the caps. I don't know how much call for it there would be here in Spokane, but it's a really cool idea.

monk · Apr 12, 2016

aside from how very nice the work looks, it's refreshing to see "niche" work like this. who knows where this could lead somebody. lets hope some youngster sees this and flies with it. it's always good to see our art take new directions. this would create more awareness of the engraving art. many thanks for showing your work, as well as the possibilities this could bring.

Scratchmo · Apr 12, 2016

It's not really a new thing I guess. I've seen several examples of work done in the past of varying quality, but nobody is really specializing in this. Aside from all the players wanting to embellish their instruments, I was contacted by a dealer who wanted me to do "the next 20 or so" of his custom horns. (made by various makers I think) I even considered tooling up to press them out like coins from pre formed blanks, but there are too many different sizes and thread patterns to deal with.

Steve Adams · Apr 13, 2016

Nice Ron. My sister plays the French Horn. i'll have to show this to her.

diandwill · Apr 13, 2016

I showed them to my daughter, another Horn player, and she replied "Those are very pretty! Of course, a French horn is beautiful without any adornments too."

As an aside, can you give an idea of what you charged for each set, maybe in a PM if you don't want to post? I might go around to a few stores with the idea and see what happens.

Thanks, Will

Sam · Apr 13, 2016

Wonderful and very creatively designed, Ron! :clapping: :beerchug:

Omar Haltam · Apr 13, 2016

you could go to the local music stores and show them some example work and leave them a business card. It is another sales pitch for helping the store close a sale on instruments when they can be engraved ...
just a thought

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