About Meeuwsen Mouthpieces

My name is Doug Meeuwsen.

I am a high school Band Director, working Trumpet Player, Family Guy, and have been doing mouthpiece work since 1978.


    In 1978 I went to The ITG convention and had the great fortune to meet Gerald Endsley, who makes mouthpieces and does some publishing. He was nice enough to let me sit at his table, and learn about everything I know about how to make Backbore reamers, cup cutters, rim threading, mouthpiece copying etc. He drew me many diagrams, and over the course of several hours over that week, I learned a lot. I had at the time a unimat lathe, (two actually) and also an old atlas/craftsman 6 inch lathe that had all kinds of problems to iron out. I learned a lot about making mouthpieces with those. 


    I lived in michigan then and eventually worked on lots of peoples mouthpieces. First just people I knew at college (at Western Michigan University, Steven Jones/Leonard Merretta were my trumpet teachers) and then people who knew the people I knew etc. Then I moved to Houston and took my unimats with me. Those are pretty good machines for doing mouthpiece alteration and threading rims etc. I did lots of work for people out there too. I also learned a lot of horn repair out there.


    Now I live in San Diego, and a have been making mouthpieces regularly since about 2006 when i got got a somewhat better machine. In 2019 I got another major upgrade to my equipment with my big heavy machine with full digital readouts and tool memory etc. I also remade my old backbore reamers out of better tool steel and some cup cutters as well.