circa. 1911

Shown in some sort of production order, we thought we would share these very interesting images from the collection of Daniel Oberloh that depict the working environment at the Conn factory, early in the twentieth century. We have done our best to clean them up and resize them for better viewing.

Sorry if there are some errors in the text, our day job is repairing and restoring band instruments, we are not English majors. This stuff is done for fun, after hours. You got a problem with it? Instead of sitting on your duff enjoying what we have to offer, do the work yourself and build your own web site! (snicker).

Filling the branches and bells with lead keeps them from kinking during the bending process.

With the use of a large cheater-bar, the large lead filled branch of a helicon bass (marching tuba) is accurately bent to the proper radius.

The "Bending Department" is where large bows, branches and bells are..well..bent. Seen here is where the ripples that occur during the process are hammered and burnished out.

The draw bench is where straight and tapered tubes and branches are formed by pulling brass tubes through dies with a steel rod of a given shape and or size inserted within the tube.

The "Bell Spinning department" is where brass instrument bells are formed on spinning-lathes. The process is one that calls for a high degree of skill.

The "valve department", where many small pieces are assembled creating the valve assemblies for all brass instruments.

The "Screw Machine department" , where most of those small pieces are created.

Parts that are not machined, drawn or spun are created with a punch press.

Punch press room.

Creating band instruments requires a great number of special tools, forms and jigs. The Machining department is where most of the tooling is made to order.

Because there are so many crooks on brass instruments, it is no surprise that there is also a crook making department.

Assembling trumpets and cornets.

Assembling department. Once all the parts are made its time to put them together.

Assembling department where the big horns are built. Once all the parts are made, its time to put them together.

The magical trombone department.

Department where brass instrument mouthpieces are machined.

Conn's Saxophone departmen.

Conn's carpentery shop.

Strapping horns is the process that polishes the brass in all the tight spots.

Back in the day, Conn had a huge engraving department that was always a bottle neck in the production. Unfortunately, this was cut back quite a bit when the new owners took over around 1917.

Once it is together, its ready for polishing. Here is a shot of the "Buffing Department". Very dirty work.

After polishing and buffing instruments that are to be nickel, silver or gold are sent to the plating department.

Need a case for the horns. Conn made their's in house. "Case Forming Dept. "

"Case Making Dept. "

We hope these images are of interest to our visitors. We will try to add more images in the future as time allows.