Wood Grained Cygnet Elbow

[Discman]

I finished wood graining the reproduction elbow for my Music master horn. These pictures document the progress from start to finish. I spent a couple of weeks experimenting with different colors of paint for the base coat and subsequent glazes to produce the grain effect I wanted. I think I tried every off the shelf wood graining tool and found none of them worked well on curved surfaces. I finally gave up and decided to just paint the grain by hand with a small artist brush. It was time consuming but worth the effort. The bare metal was sanded lightly with 220 paper and primed with Rustoleum. The base coat is a color called "Aztec Yellow" by Glidden and sold at Home Depot. The grain was created with glaze made from three different colors of acrylic paint (Nutmeg,Burnt Sienna and Black). It was finished with 4 coats of orange shellac made from flake and sprayed with a HVLP gun. The complete horn is shown mounted on my Triumph D. The horn bell was purchased from Eduardo Portillo. I was a little apprehensive about having something like that shipped from Lima Peru but it was packed extremely well and arrived in 10 days. Eduardo puts air holes in the box so the finish can breath. When the mailman delivered the box he said everyone at the post office was speculating about what was in it; they thought it might be snakes.
Dave Jolley

[gramophone78]

That's it!!!......I'm selling off the Berliner's and becoming a convert..... . That looks just stunning.....for an Edison machine...

[Dave D]

Wow! Dave, that is fantastic looking! You did a great job. Was the horn prefinished or were you able to buy it unfinished so you could match it all up?
Dave

[Discman]

Dave,
The horn was prefinished. He would have sold it to me unfinished but his stock finish is close enough in color that it still looks good with the Triumph. If I decide to darken the horn, it's just a matter of adding 2 or 3 more coats of shellac.
Dave

[Jerry B.]

What wonderful results! Also, I appreciate the step by step instructions with photos. Thanks, Jerry Blais

[phonogfp]

A superb result! You could do this professionally.

George P.

[Bob]

Looks great. You did a really nice job.

[phonogal]

WOW! That turned out great!

[Phonofreak]

Wow,you did a superb job. It really looks great and you make it seem so easy.
Harvey Kravitz

[gemering]

Dave,
You are incredibly talented.
The Triumph is stunning!
Gene