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Does anyone know how many company's made silk lined horns and why did they do this?

Bill

Speaking from fairly limited experience, as to "why", I think it was to cut down on unwanted resonance from the relatively thin steel "funnel" of the horn.

I have three large ( 30 inch) long horns:

> panelled Tea-Tray Company "morning-glory" horn ( tin-plated steel, very thin )

> Superior all-brass horn

> Hawthorne and Sheble "Silk-Lined" "Black and Brass" horn ( Brass bell, steel cone with black silk jacket ).


The Tea-Tray Co. was my first big horn, and I noticed that when playing music with loud passages and in certain musical key-centers, the horn itself would begin to resonate with the music- confirmed by lifting the reproducer off the record during such a passage, and hearing the horn continue to "ring" for a second or two afterwards.

For me ( a musician with a fairly sensitive ear ), this can get to be pretty distracting.


One day I had a talking machine friend with good ears over, and I demonstrated this, and we did a simple comparison experiment between the three horns, checking for sympathetic resonances.

We found that the TTCo. horn had the most [unwanted] resonance, the all-brass Standard horn very little resonance, and the H&S "Silk-Lined" horn no detectable resonance.

I think another factor was manufacturing cost - it was probably least expensive to manufacture the "black and brass" style horn with a thin steel funnel, and throw a fabric jacket on it to kill any unwanted resonance.


That's my little theory.

So you have an H&S Silk horn. I know they made them. I'm wondering if others made them too?

To the best of my knowledge, Hawthorne & Sheble was the only manufacturer to offer a horn with permanently affixed fabric (which H&S called "Silk Finish"). The idea was to dampen resonance, and this treatment was applied to both black & brass horns and flower horns.

George P.

Thanks for the replies, I think this answers my questions so far.

George, did H&S make very many of these or are they considered "Rare"?

Bill

Not necessarily rare, but the "silk finish" sometimes does not age well. Nowadays when a H&S horn is found with an unpainted body, chances are the "silk finish" has fallen off.

George P.

I will try to post pictures of my H&S "silk-lined" tomorrow ( I think "Silk-Jacketed" is more accurate, but they didn't ask me... )

The brass is dull ( but not brown or green ), and silk jacket has a few holes in it, but for something that's over 100 yeas old, it still looks reasonably respectable, and I would hesitate to try to improve its appearance.

De Soto Frank wrote:I will try to post pictures of my H&S "silk-lined" tomorrow ( I think "Silk-Jacketed" is more accurate, but they didn't ask me... )

I don't mean to be redundant, but the term Hawthorne & Sheble used was "Silk Finish."

George P.

Thank you George!
The H&S product was "Silk Finish"! - as its on the exterior of the horn - "lining" usually refers to the interior finish material of something - Your jacket, a box, trunk, closet, etc... For example a portable phonograph may have an interior lining and an exterior covering... etc

My work is done here - Semantics-Man up up and awayyyyy

phonogfp wrote:

De Soto Frank wrote:I will try to post pictures of my H&S "silk-lined" tomorrow ( I think "Silk-Jacketed" is more accurate, but they didn't ask me... )

I don't mean to be redundant, but the term Hawthorne & Sheble used was "Silk Finish."

George P.

George - sorry about that !

I went and looked at my horn last night, and though most of the "wax-seal" label is about 50% gone, but I was able to make-out :

"--ilk - ----inish"

Hopefully this will stick in my mind now.


Frank