Open House - June 2013

We like to invite visitors to the Harrelson Shop every now and then. Today's open house has given us an opportunity to unpack and organize after the ITG Conference a few weeks ago. Considering I build all the trumpets and parts myself, I prefer to limit visitors during weekdays so that I remain focused on designing, machining, soldering and assembly of instruments. But open house days are the exception, when you can come see live demonstrations of cnc machining acrobatics as well as trumpet performance acrobatics!

Luckily, it is mild and relatively dry this fine Minnesota Saturday. Last week was tough on us in the machine shop with inside temperatures hovering in the upper 80's with high humidity. Oscar (our 4-pound shop dog) literally slumped on the floor all week long. Minnesota is a funny place with weather consistently miserable extreme dry cold at least 6 months a year followed by equally uncomfortable hot humid mosquito feeding for 3 months. The months in between are usually rain mixed with some really nice days that truly seem unbelievable to locals, but are likely the norm in other parts of the country. Today is one of those nice days that people will recall throughout the summer as temperatures and humidity rise high enough wilt just about everything in sight, including people. I personally love the hot humid weather and enjoy sweating through my respirator and safety glasses while I cut, grind, polish, bend, stretch and torch brass all summer.

So take a minute to mark August 10th on your calendar and plan to visit the Harrelson Trumpets Shop during our next open house. James Knabe will be visiting for advanced SWE Training and we will have a full line of HT trumpets, 5MM modular mouthpieces and SWE trim kits on hand to play test. This is a great opportunity to ask me your burning questions about efficiency, design, manufacturing and performance techniques. I hope to see you there!

Special thanks to Jolene for helping us stage and clean the shop this morning and for the tasty fruit basket :)

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