Hutchins Ahoogah Horn Assembly Question
 

If you older guys will recall your youth for a minute, back in the 1960's there was a company making ahoogah horns called Hutchins. I have one of these and I took it apart to clean and paint it for my daily driver. I need to assemble it and like the original Model A horns I need to put a gasket between the bell and the base. I contacted someone who rebuilds these about what I can use and was told 'This is harder than you imagine. There is RPM and tuning involved due to the thickness of the gasket' OK this sounds a bit to complicated for me (being electrically challenged). If one of you kind folks have worked on one of these horns can you please tell me what I can use for a gasket?

Re: Hutchins Ahoogah Horn Assembly Question
 

Go get the paper gasket which is available for the Sparton horns. Adapt as necessary with a hole punch. Or get some thin gasket material and cut your own. Wax paper might be a good substitute.

Then, when you assemble, use the slotted screw/nut inside the horn bell to adjust contact between the diaphragm and the groove wheel. You can play around with this to get the correct contact for speed, volume. Tightening the nut will ALWAYS change the degree of contact/touch of the screw so you'll have to make several tries to get something satisfactory.

I suspect your rebuilder friend was "upping the ante" and encouraging your technical intimidation by enlarging this all to more than it really is.

You probably want to choose a gasket material that is pretty thin. You don't want any movement between the three parts (flange/diaphragm/flange) as their relative position should be pretty close and a thick gasket might dampen or muffle the sound.

I might add that the Hutchins horns, if they're what I think they are, were a pretty cheap horn and sold at Western Auto and Pep-Boys as replacement for the Sparton and for those who watched Son of Flubber and wanted the sound for their modern car. I have three currently (one 12v) and while similar to the Model A Sparton, they are not nearly as well made.

But they work well I guess, and are appearance period correct.

Good luck with this. It's not rocket science. Start talking about rewinding and THEN you need someone with tech savvy.

Joe K

Re: Hutchins Ahoogah Horn Assembly Question
 

Thank you Joe K