Brass and wind instrument repairers clean, adjust, and repair these instruments. They move mechanical parts or play scales to find defects. They may unscrew and remove rod pins, keys, and pistons, and remove soldered parts using gas torches. They repair dents in metal instruments using mallets or burnishing tools. They fill cracks in wood instruments by inserting pinning wire and covering them with filler.
Repairers also inspect instrument keys and replace worn pads and corks.
Percussion instrument repairers work on drums, cymbals, and xylophones. In order to repair a drum, they remove drum tension rod screws and rods by hand or by using a drum key. They cut new drumheads from animal skin, stretch the skin over rimhoops and tuck it around and under the hoop using hand tucking tools. To prevent a crack in a cymbal, gong or similar instrument from advancing repairers may operate a drill press or hand power drill to drill holes at the inside edge of the crack. Another technique they may use involves cutting out sections around the cracks using shears or grinding wheels.