Canada Vs Nathan Airchime

[NickN]

This is a two-part question...

1) When did the K horns made in Canada go to diecast?
2) Did they suffer from the same "off note" problems that the Nathans did, or did the castings remain truer to the intended chord?

There's quite a bit of Nathan timeline info but precious little I have found about the Canadian manufactured ones, any info welcome please.

[Mafarnz]

Sand cast horns remained in production in Canada until the early/mid 1980’s. After Holden stopped producing K horns all K’s were die cast by Nathan in the US, and subject to their terrible quality control.

[NickN]

Excellent, many thanks for that.
I need to try and find some SSD horns made here in the UK, one of these days. They were made up until 1998.

[Railgeek]

Sand casting stopped at Airchime in early 1977. The K5LA was the first horn to start using the new diecast bells.

[NickN]

Ah, thanks. Think that all makes sense. So Airchime at Burnaby were a R&D place and Nathan actually manufactured the horns?

[Railgeek]

Airchime in Vancouver, then Burnaby did all the designing, but they also sold their own horns. Horns sold by Airchime have an Airchime tag on them. They did have several licensees over the years though. The Holden Co. Ltd. sold and serviced Airchime products, which were manufactured under license by Burnett Power Saws & Eng. Co. Ltd. Eventually, The Holden Co. Ltd., or IEC-Holden Co., or IEC-Holden Co. Ltd. manufactured and sold Airchime products. Every horn that wasn't sold through Airchime itself was sold through Holden and manufactured by BPS/(eventually) Holden.

Airchime tag:


BPS thin tag:

[NickN]

I hope you will forgive the ongoing questions: it's a part of the whole K horn manufacturing that I've never thus far fully understood, so you are being a big help, thank you.

I have a couple of Langley Airchime tagged bells, a KS1 and KS2, presumably Nathan castings.
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[Langleyrail]

My understanding is that the K horns are manufactured still here in Langley BC by a company called Simalex. When I talked with them they told me they have been producing horns for Airchime since the 70s and still do. I’m sure there are other areas where MP uses but I was told they are the only company that does and have all the old molds from the beginning. Not sure if they were involved in Sandcasting but definitely pressure die casting.