i recieved my flute back from repair has brownsih copper near where it was bent.What happened?

When taking out a dent on a silver plated flute, if the dent is bad enough, some of the plating will come off.
Piko has a good example of this on his webpage.

Silver is a very ductile material, and also adheres very well to the base metal.

The base metal can normally be bent and unbent dozens if not hundreds of times, with no problem to the silver plating, unless it is of exceptionally poor quality.

In my experience, the only way that the silver appearance could be wrecked during dent material is if the silver plating is actually removed by some physical means, such as grinding, sand-papering, and/or severe buffing. In my experience of dent removal, removal of the has never been necessary.

Only after the most severe CREASING of the metal - quite a bit beyond a normal dent - has this been necesssary, and still I would prefer to leave the surface with a minute visual blemish, than resort to thinning the metal in order to get the surface perfectly smooth.

If a technician deems it necessary to resort to reducing the wall thickness for cosmetic reasons, hence removing the silver plating, then the job is not completed until the plating is restored using a touch-up silver plating kit. This is a quick, routine operation, using quite cheap equipment.

Sorry, but I suggest that your `technician` is less capable &/or thorough than he needs to be to do good work on dents.

Is this the case also in Pico`s case that has been referred to? Can you provide a link to this page?

I must have been around some poor tech`s because I have seen this before. The silver plating cracks and then peels.
I just got a mandrel and removed a few dents, but this hasn`t happened to me, but it have seen it.

If Piko would like to provide the link, then I will leave it up to him, since it his personal web page.

My work blocks all major image sites for some reason.
I think this is the link, but feel free to correct.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/sylvangale

The copper blotches can be re-silver plated over. It`ll look a little funny close up, but from a distance it`s hard to tell. Heck maybe a good silver nail polish that matches the flute would work temporarily.

NICKEL plating peels off very easily.

Kara, removing dents as I suggested will never make silver plating peel. I think it may peel if the technician uses the burnishing tools which I have mentioned before. This is probably common practice for technicians, because I have never heard of another technician doing it my way, unless it was at my suggestion. Without the method I suggested to you, burnishing and dent balls are probably the only other options.

Burnishing, if the tool is not immaculately smooth - which is quite difficult for a technician to establish - will scratch the plating. So then the technician buffs the area, removing metal until the bottom of the scratches is reached, hence removing much or all of the plating in the area. Hence the non-silver appearance.

I don`t believe it, Pico.

Surely you did not immerse the flute in water & whatever else with the pads on!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

No, absolutely NO technician would do that.

Pico wrote, "The copper blotches can be re-silver plated over. It`ll look a little funny close up, but from a distance it`s hard to tell."

Whatever are you using, Pico? A touch-up silver plating job is silver plating, and cannot be distinguished form the rest of the instrument.

Is your silver plating solution contaminated?

"I don`t believe it, Pico.

Surely you did not immerse the flute in water & whatever else with the pads on!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

No, absolutely NO technician would do that."

Lol, you crack me up! Piko is not a repair tech as far as I know. I really don`t think that he would do that to his good flute. I am sure it was merely an experience on an old flute.

When did Piko say that he re-plated it with silver? Perhaps you misread something? I have silver plating that does a terrible job. It always turns out smutty no matter how much I polish it to blend with the other silver on the rest of the flute. Any recommendations to that?

I am still having problems being able to remove a dent completely on a flute. It is harder to do then it looks. I did get some tips from "he who remains unnamed." Am I speaking with him now, or is this another helpful repair tech?

I don`t believe it, Picko. Surely you did not immerse the flute in water & whatever else with the pads on!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yep, and it actually played better afterwards. The pads never deformed and the mechanism became even more fluid (it was thouroughly dried and oiled). I`ve done so many things to this old Armstrong... they really are quite durable. lol.

Whatever are you using, Piko? A touch-up silver plating job is silver plating, and cannot be distinguished form the rest of the instrument. Is your silver plating solution contaminated?

You can tell it`s been done. It`s not that there`s anything wrong with the silver plating, but you can see when you look at the flute close enough. I have a flute that`s been "touched up" rather well and one really wouldn`t notice unless you were looking for it... but it`s noticable. Like when someone paints cabinets and misses a spot and goes back and touches it up... hardly noticable, but you can definately tell.

Various powders and fluids are available that one can rub on metal to result in an extremely coting that has a silvery appearance.

I wonder if this is what was done for the touch-up.

If so, it is not true silver plating.

sorry...
"extremely coting" = "extremely thin coating".

The silver plating matches fine, but you can see how it was applied.

Like when you re-white out an area that`s already been whited out.

Hello!! I am so sorry you received your instrument in that condition. I would like for you to research "Eugene Gordon Woodwind Repair," because this establishment is known worldwide and the best. Sam Gordon can answer your question. He is located in Chicago, Illinois

Just call him and he is nice.
He also sell flutes.

I hope everything goes all well.

Valerie`s Flute Studio