Heads Up: King Brace Factory Alteration

[the elephant]

The very commonly used King euphonium brace foot that can be subbed in for the similarly-shaped York or Holton tuba slide tube brace feet has been discontinued permanently.

Conn-Selmer, in its infinite lack of wisdom, continues to reduce the parts needed to build both Conn and King brasswinds as separate brands that have separate design cues. The two continue to be morphed into one line. I am sure that one day one of the two brands will be killed off entirely after they have dropped any individualism from either. I bet that one day a "King" sousaphone valve section will be tacked together using "Conn" trumpet braces. (Smaller = cheaper, you know.)

Tim at Allied told me that the new version of K988 has a ROUND flange rather than the tightly rolled, elongated diamond-shaped foot. However, the K991 brace foot has not, as yet, been altered, and still sports its more elegant (and York- and Holton-looking) foot. It is, however, bent to a flatter radius. To use the K988 on tuba-sized tubes required them to be tapped over the correctly sized tube to open the radius up a bit, as they were made for the Cleveland baritone. This was easy and fast to do neatly. The K991 will require you to hammer the flange around the tube, which takes more time to do neatly, but is not too much of a time-waster.

I was assured that the K991 uses the same 3/16" socket. I think I have some of these that I used on braces between a slide tube and a larger branch. If so, the diamond is the same, and only the radius of the curve differs. The K991 is also a few cents cheaper than the K988. ($3.45 versus $3.64, I think.) EDIT: No, this was the K839, but it was for large branches and very flat. I think the K991 is somewhat between the two.

I am hoping that the photo with the measurements is the correct one. It looks just like the old K988, so I suspect what I just bought will be much smaller. This is an unfortunate loss if you use these frequently on projects. You can no longer mimic the braces of really old tubas using a brace with a thicker center post. Thanks, Conn-Selmer Cyborg; thanks a lot.

I will post a photo of what I receive in the mail once it gets here, likely next week.

If you order K988 brace feet expecting the original diamond-footed part you will get this instead.


The most adequate substitute is the King K991 brace foot, which appears to have the same flange size, but it has been rolled less, so you will have to bend it to fit your slide tubes.

[bloke]

Yeah… Having seen enough of the recent-issue instruments, I figured that out.
I guard those parts pretty jealously, and only offer them to people who offer me equally-coveted things - things more coveted than casual amounts of currency.

[the elephant]

I don't need to keep stuff like that in stock, so I just use them up and order more. Until I use them up and discover that there *are* no more.

Lesson learned…

[bloke]

Once I've just about exhausted my stash, I have quite a few busted ones, and (rather than painstakingly turning the sockets on the c̶r̶a̶p̶p̶y̶ lathe), I'll harvest the sockets, and braze them on to (not too terribly hard to fashion) new flanges - which I'll probably cut/grind out of brass tubing, rather than cutting out of sheet metal, and then (eek!) struggling to bend nicely/smoothly.

[the elephant]

UPDATE:

I received my shipment from those nice folks at Allied Supply, and, indeed, the ones I bought use the same footplate. It is rolled much less tightly, looking like it would fit a tube about the size of King 2341 bell ferrule.

The old one was for a King Cleveland baritone's MTS tube, and it was a little smaller than the Miraphone 186 tubing I use these with, so I would have to press-fit them and then tap with a hammer to get them to hold the new curvature.

The new ones will require some tapping with a brass hammer or drift to curve them to work on tuba slide tubes. BUT THEY ARE ESSENTIALLY THE SAME BRACE.

If you need the old K988 the K991 is a good substitute part.

[bloke]

sidebar: (not directed at Wade)

I've never quite understood the issue, but some have expressed a preference for diamond-shaped, because they report difficultly soldering nicely/neatly (with minimum clean-up required) under round-shaped flanges.

CLARIFICATION: I'm disappointed with all of Conn-Selmer's downgrades (including this one), but ASIDE FROM THAT...

Soldering a round flange works out best (for me - with the least clean-up) by heating the center post, and allowing the heat to evenly distribute itself down the post and - then - radiate evenly out the symmetrical/round flange.

All of that having been said, Conn and many European flanges are round, so (unless someone strictly limits themselves to using vintage King flanges and 1/4" rod to mount valvesets) round flanges DO exist elsewhere in the world.

sidebar-to-the-sidebar:

Some lead soldering seems to work best heating the unattached part, and other lead soldering seems to work best heating the base surface (to which the unattached part is to be soldered). Obviously (to me), round flanges solder on best heating the (a specific part of) the unattached part.

[the elephant]

This is aimed at DIY-ers who are in need of similar-looking replacement (or additional/new) braces on projects where old York, Holton, or King tubas are being messed with, all of which use diamond-footed braces through the valve sections. The King parts match the diamond feet of these old horns very closely, even if the sockets all differ.

Also, for some of us, this is an aesthetics issue that gets discussed on and off again, rather than one of soldering. (Personally, I think round-footed braces look UGLY and impart a student-y look to most horns. My Kurath has nothing but round brace feet, and I am hoping to rectify this visual travesty, heh, heh…)

Regarding soldering these guys up: For me, round brace feet are much faster, easier, and neater to solder, but I only use them when I have to. I hate mixing the two styles on one horn. My Kurath and Holton both have a mix because I used a number of different brands of detachable braces to make my plans workable, and I did not feel the urge to trim the round or oval ones into diamonds — mostly because I am not good at that. I do better when I can cut brace feet from a sheet rather than altering an existing one. I can never get all four edges "just so"…

Potato, potahto…

[bloke]

yeah...
On my Holton B-flat, I did mix-and-match in the fashion of the last o.e.m. usage of the King "diamond" braces - whereby really small flanges were round, and medium-and-large were diamonds.

Also (where flanges needed to be attached to those smooth/convex Holton bottom bow ferrules), I intentionally selected "round" - because diamonds would (in my view) look crappy, were they distorted so much as to fit on to the concave surfaces.

[the elephant]

I almost never put braces on big ferrules. I just move the brace a little, if that is practicable. But yeah, round feet are a lot more easily bent to fit in weird spaces, too, like a little sombrero. The diamond-footed ones are a LOT less adaptable, but I still will choose them over a round flange whenever I can.

That Holton Eb that I built the valve section for (using the larger bore Olds/Reynolds four-piston set @ .689") was put together using only Allied universal brace kits, so all round, except for a few Olds ovals and one Miraphone one — well, that was round, too, but curvy, one-piece, and nickel silver. I put the horn together largely using stuff I had at hand, so it was a bit mongrel-ish in that regard, but those Allied kits (A158) were by far the most common on the horn.