I am a self-taught adult trombone player. I`m not a great player (and probably never will be!), but I felt I was making sufficient progress to have outgrown my rather battered student instrument. The choice has fallen on a King 3BF, which I picked up second hand for a bit over 300 dollars. It`s in pretty good condition and the slide is a dream compared to my old instrument. I also notice an improvement in the tone and centering of notes, particularly higher up the register. I think it will make a good "step-up" for me without breaking the bank. Another plus is that it allows me to learn to use an F-attachment.

One thing I am wondering about this instrument is why does the F attachment have two tuning slides? There is one which pulls back (in the same direction as the main tuning slide) and a second which pulls forward. What is the point of having two tuning slides in series on the same piece of tubing? The only possible explanation I could think of is that you can tune the F attachment with one, and then pull the other out if you need to reach a low B. The advanatge being that you can then just push it all the way back if you need to switch back again quickly. Of course the other advantage is that if one gets stuck you don`t need to get the instrument repaired but I don`t think that`s what King were thinking of when they designed it that way!

Can anybody explain this to me?

Mark

Further to my earlier post, I made a mistake describing the horn. All three of the tuning slides pull out in the same direction.

Mark

do you have two triggers?

No, there is only 1 trigger. The extra tubing which the trigger engages has two tuning slides in it, one after the other. Obviously it`s possible to tune F using only one of these, leaving the other one alone. This seems odd to me, but I`m sure there must be a reason or they wouldn`t have built it that way.

Mark

maybe one is to facilitate getting the excess condesation out of it???
just a guess. i have never seen that before, but getting water out of the F side of my 88H is a pain.

My only other guess would be that the two would make it easier to go from an F to an F-sharp attachment, like the second trigger on a bass bone. But it`s only a guess, i`ve never heard of that before.

so i take it the horn has a traditional wrap, if this is the case, then 1 tuning slide couldn`t make the F attachment actually tune to F, it would go past the main tuning slide on the main part of the horn and would then defeat its name. a open wrap is the one with only one tunign slide, if you want a horn with only 1 tunign slide then look into a open wrap.

Getting the condensation out easily might just be the explanation!

I can tune to a low B only using one of the tuning slides....at which point it`s pulled so far back that it protudes beyond the main tuning slide.

Thanks for the replies anyway. It`s not a big deal, the horn plays great and I`m very satisfied with it for the money paid. I was just curious.

Mark

They have the same crook ==> cheaper to manufacture, and in an early advertisement from King factory, they claim that the smallest ones is for F tuning, while the other is fully pushed, but the longest one allows the attachement to be tuned in E (if you pull it far behind), in order to get the low B natural in 7th, while you keep your F tuning position on the smallest... Easier to come back to F perfectly in tune...

Okay, people, you really need to get yourself onto a GOOD forum called

forum.trombone.org

There are ALOT of full time pros on, plus, alot more members, everything that this site lacks, if you had asked that question, the FORST post back would have told you one is for the E pull. I really reccomend you get yourselves to the OTJF because this place really sucks