Atkinson French Horns Suck: Atkinson Brass Sucks

Monday, September 14, 2009

Atkinson Brass Sucks

Ok this first post on Atkinson Brass French Horns Suck Blog is the proverbial hello world post. Basically, I sent a very old HF Knopf that I had been using for years to Atkinson's repair shop in Burbank, California. Their website waxed poetic about their love of old horns and I had had terrible luck with repair shops in the area where I was living and so I sent my horn. Their first attempt to do what I wanted with my horn ended up botched horribly. Their second attempt was only slightly better than the first. This blog stands as a warning to anyone, Don't send or buy a horn from Atkinson Brass until you've read all of the information on this site and have decided that you like to take risks about the quality you'll receive. BTW I would be happy to talk about my experience with anyone so give me an email at osakochris [at] hotmail [dot] com with out all the spaces and brackets.

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What's This Blog About

A few years ago, I sent my HF Knopf horn to Atkinson Brass to have the bell cut, the valve's re-plated and three spit valves installed. When I received my horn, what Atkinson Brass had done to the horn was horribly unbelievable. Large glops of solder was everywhere near the joints they had re-soldered. The main bell brace had a gap between the brace and the bell that was large enough to slip a piece of paper half an inch under the brace. The main tuning slides were misaligned making it difficult to remove the slides unless kept heavily greased. They only installed two of the three spit valves requested. And the worst part of all, the change valve stem was ground in a really bizarre way so that as the valve is depressed, the rotation is in an arc rather than on center and the often binds up going from the F to Bb side.

After receiving the horn I made a complaint to Atkinson complete with pictures and Mark Atkinson promised me that he would handle the work himself. Needless to say, my horn, that I had paid over $1200 came back in nearly as bad a condition as when it left. Unable to deny the charges on my credit card due to the amount of time all this took. I tried to appeal to other horn users to boycott Atkinson's shop.

On this blog, I am posting all photos and video of my ordeal with the express goal to 1. outrank Atkinson Brass in the search engines so anyone searching for that company will have a chance to read and see what Atkinson did to my horn and 2. warn other horn players who may be thinking about buying a new Atkinson horn or using their repair service to consider another shop.

To Atkinson staff, if you're reading this page, in your email, as reprinted on this website, you mention, "ugly slander," it's actually libel and that only counts for things written that are untrue. I believe the videos, photos, email dialogues, and scanned invoices will be sufficient enough to prove the validity of what I'm saying. Furthermore if you want this site to go away, you need only replace the change valve that you ruined. Pretty reasonable, I think, for someone who has been dealing with, on a daily basis, your botched repairs.

Atkinson French Horns Suck

Monday, September 14, 2009

Atkinson Brass Sucks

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