My 16a is from 1929 when it was installed in Pennsylvania. It was then taken down circa 1970 to storage. From that storage it found a European home back in early 2000. The 16a was only designed that way to comply to the physical constraints of multi purpose theatres. What happened is that those constraints…

This image was taken not in 1926 but 2018. Based on original casting models we have managed to fine tune the whole process. This takes time, devotion, patience and a few pennies. The only pursuit here is perfection. The whole casting process has been reworked. This entailed getting deep into the craft of casting methods,…

Castings models only last so long so you sooner or later get around to making them again. Here the rear bracket and side brackets used on we12a and we15 solid wood seen in the previous article. True to original these are for cast iron made from solid wood including core boxes. Not be be confused…

November 2017 : Some 70km North of Copenhagen during the ETF meeting of 2017 my good friend « B » decided to host a small lecture on Western Electric and some of their amazing technology and testing gear at Bell Laboratories. Amazing stuff indeed! During this small lecture we watched a short film in which you can…

This is what it takes to get the job done, to make exact replica throats in cast iron. No shortcuts, easier to make brass, no lost wax casting..indeed juts plain and simple cast iron as all the western electric horn throats. Easier said than done! I really love this “very industriel” stage of my production…

This is a typical section from the sides of the 13a horn, one of the 120 needed to make one 13a horn. The shape is like a propeller, end is rounded to follow horn profile and the two straight edges are not parallel (that would be too easy don’t you think!). These side sections are…