Conn French Horn Bell Restored!

Here is a Conn French Horn with a severely damaged bell section.  This particular bell was very soft so I began by carefully messaging out some of the creases and reshaping the folds and creases back to the original flare by using a bell iron and just my arms and hands.  Remaining on the bell iron, I began to tap out the high points of the creases with a leather protected raw hide mallet.  The bell brace remained to provide support and a visual reference to restore the bells original outward angle from the main branch.   I went after some of the sharper dents with a bell roller.  I then used a variety of French horn dent rods to work out the creases and dents in the throat between the bell brace and the finger hook.  The finger hook was removed and then reattached after I completed the dent work. 

Here is the restored bell just before I reattached the finger hook.

One year later, I was presented with this same instrument. I dealt with a common repair.  Many times, horns have a liar holder on the branch of tubing coming out of the third rotor.  Perhaps, it become bent or pushed into the tube when, with liar attached, something or someone inadvertently came into contact with it.  The only solution to correcting this issue is to cut into the branch, unsolder at the rotor ferrule, remove the dents and reassemble the tube using either a lathe manufactured ferrule at the cut point or one that can be repurposed from a bone pile of parts.  In this case, I chose to do the latter because the part was available.