Flex-Hone in use at Oberloh Woodwind and Brass Works, a manufacturer of musical instruments
The Flex-Hone® tool is used for the repair, maintenance and manufacture of woodwind and brass instruments. Common instruments include trombones, trumpets, flutes, tubas and French horns, but it can also be used on any brass instrument with valves
Oberloh Woodwind and Brass Works in Seattle, Washington, is nationally recognized for its repair and reconditioning of brass and woodwind instruments. A typical repair often begins with cleaning and reworking the instrument. The technicians often use the Flex-Hone® tool for this.
In a typical repair, the instrument is cleaned after disassembly and before any dent removal. The Flex-Hone process ensures that any roughness caused by materials such as limescale, deposits or general corrosion is removed. This also allows the technicians at Oberloh Woodwind and Brass Works to avoid embedding internal pipe debris into the soft brass during the dent removal process. These residues can cause obvious gliding problems. Not a good thing…
Oberloh Woodwinds believes in the process so much that they have a specially designed honing oil machine that floods the pipe with a specially formulated oil for the honing process. This machine filters the oil and feeds it back to the workpiece for further processing with the Flex-Hone.
A close-up of the Flex-Hone®
This is an example of the successful use of Flex-Hone. Oberloh has found that using the Flex-Hone makes work more efficient in terms of time, cost and performance. In other words, the owner of Oberloh Woodwinds, Daniel Oberloh, receives better pay for straightforward, hassle-free work and offers his customers a higher quality end product that is completed faster and at a lower price.
The Flex-Hone cleans and polishes the inside of the pipe
