Rogue Repair

06/03/2021

A nice shout-out from the University of Minnesota, School of Music about the shop! Thanks for the interview!

Alumna Melanie Ditter (BM, horn performance, 2012) created Rogue Repair, a new instrument repair business serving the Twin Cities area. In recent months, she has grown the business from a small side job to a full-time job. Ditter recently discussed her experience leading this new venture with us.

04/29/2020

Made some LONG-overdue updates to the website! It's still missing a comprehensive list of services, but I will be happy to answer any inquiries by phone, text, email, or messenger. Gift certificates are available for future services if you are interested, and I am starting to schedule limited curbside repair pick up/drop off. Details of how that works, plus some informative COVID-19 related links are now on the website!

Band instrument repair, service, and customization in St Paul, MN. Serving musicians of all abilities with an equal commitment to quality.

04/22/2020

Part 2 of 3 in my restringing video series is now up for viewing!

This one covers different, potentially tricky lever shapes you may encounter when restringing (specifically on horns, here). Again, there are time stamps in the description so you can skip around to the good stuff! It includes two real-life demos and, as the thumbnail shows, a couple lovely whiteboard sketches of what I didn't have access to at the time. Check it out if you're as excited about rotary valve strings as I am. If you like it, tell a friend!

Thanks for lookin'!📯

Part 2 of 3 in a video series all about restringing rotary valves! TIME STAMPS are listed below the description so you can skip around if you wish. Consider ...

04/15/2020

A couple weeks ago, a friend of mine who teaches at a local college asked me to make a restringing tutorial for their horn studio to learn from--specifically one showing different lever shapes that can often stump you the first time through. It sounded fun, so I agreed!

At first, I assumed there would already be a pretty exhaustive selection of YouTube videos on this subject, but I quickly discovered I had more to contribute. So... I did! I also quickly realized it would have to be split up into multiple videos:

-Part 1 covers the basic process from start to finish; quickly, then in detail, with some extra info on supplies.
-Part 2 will show common examples of other lever shapes, and how the same process from Part 1 still applies to different shapes.
-Part 3 will go over lever height/position adjustment, as well as troubleshooting a handful of common problems related to restringing.

I'm still editing parts 2 and 3, but will share them too, once completed.

NOTE: Don't be frightened by the length of the video--there are time stamps in the Description you can click to skip back and forth to the good stuff 🙂

Thanks for watching, and feel free to share! 📯

Part 1 of 3 in a video series all about restringing rotary valves! Time stamps for different sections of the video are listed after the description if you'd ...

02/27/2020

I had a school horn come in a couple months ago with a big gap where the 5th branch met the outer F tuning slide tube. As best I could tell, it came from the manufacturer this way with only a half-full solder joint and very very little overlap of the two parts, as there was lacquer all the way to the end of part of the branch tube and barely any tinning. A small bump must have been all it took to open that gap up and cause the horn to sound like a moo-cow when you played it.

I decided the most cost-effective solution was to replace the existing outer slide tube with a slightly-longer one, rather than attempt to unsolder the branch and several other parts and do a lot of flexing around, risk buckling the branch tube in doing so, and definitely have more solder and lacquer clean-up. I was fortunate to have one in my boneyard to use, which would match the rolled edge of the factory tube.

I was pretty happy with how it turned out, and was a relatively easy repair. While cosmetics are not always top-priority for school instruments, I also think that instruments which don't look like they have been worked on a whole bunch tend to be handled with a little more care. I hope I achieved a good balance of solving the problem efficiently and still making it look nice without going too overboard here.