"emergency" sousaphones

[bloke]

OK...
The only thing remaining is to clean up the silver-part-to-silver-part solder joints, shine up the silver parts, clean the brass parts, and hit the brass parts with metallic silver rattle-can paint (with a coat of clear).

...so here's the Pan American/14K/36K/22K/38K/Secrist-pistons (sans the thick coat of white paint under the thick coat of blue paint) sousaphone:
cost: two days of paint-stripping, unsmashing, and fitting stuff together, plus c. $250 for a pre-retirement Secrist valve rebuild job.

(no dents)

I'm thinking I'll supply one of those Chinese helleberg knock-offs with it...(??)


Notice the cast brace from the #1 upper return to the body.
The reason it doesn't fit the old footprint, is because that's actually a 36K (fiberglass) cast brace (found via scrounging) that I reshaped to function on a 14K. I DID find another one (which someone had Z-ed out of some square stock), but decided to go with a factory-made (even if wrong) part, as the solder joint contact feet are so much larger...and I would have had to alter a "correct" one anyway, as I had altered this valve section to have an upper return SLIDE, and not just a fixed bow.



Thanks to @Nworbekim for selling me the used Conn sousaphone tuning bits.


The first (and LAST, by me ) sounds ever made with this sousaphone:



bloke "your stuff-from-junk man"

[bloke]

The satin silver bell exterior's silver is completely intact.

The interior of the bell elbow was completely devoid (??) of silver, and the last 5 inches or so of the bell flair interior featured badly-worn silver...so rattle can to the rescue on the bell elbow interior and some feathering on the bell flair interior. (Yes...You're seeing it after a great deal of buffing.)


Reminder:
This bell's elbow and flair were partially detached, it was badly beaten, the male tenon wasn't round, and there was a thick coat of white paint underneath a thick coat of blue paint.

[MiBrassFS]

That looks good! What the heck kind of paint did you use?

[bloke]

I'll go look; it's one of the name brand rattle cans and it was labeled Chrome. It was in the paint cabinet along with a bunch of other rattle cans of silver metallic that were duplicatively bought due to their being a mess and not knowing what we already had. I used it up on the body on that body elbow and the valve section. Those actually look better than the bell.

I have to shoot some rattle can on the King tomorrow. It's got worn areas on the second and third branches and the entire bell interior is either raw brass or has a really worn down layer of gold wash on it. It's hard to tell which. It's already straightened out and ready to go. The body was one of those late 40s bodies with the copper valves, and they really weren't worn at all, but I went ahead and nickel plated them because anyone that looks at those copper valves thinks that they are copper because all the nickel is worn off and just don't understand, so whatever.

[bloke]

Here's the body with the valve section and body elbow painted.

The elbow isn't a perfect match to silver plating, but not as bluish as in the picture...
It was catching a reflection of the dusk sky.
There is a light dusting of overspray on the silver plated body branches.
I'll clean it off with gas-and-and-rag, and then shine those branches back up with a silver polishing cloth.

The slides are painted, but sitting on a stand.
I'm really not ready to insert the valves and slides.

imperfections? yup...again: fixed up crazy-fast and built from junk and scraps
hey: NO PATCHES

@MiBrassFS
It's an old can of DupliColor (chrome)...I don't remember buying it...





bloke "At least to me, it sounds better than any of the university's 2019 - 2022 bought 20K's...and the valves feel better, too...but whatever"

[York-aholic]

$250 for a pre-retirement Secrist valve rebuild job.

Just thinking about this just about makes me cry.

[bloke]

$250 for a pre-retirement Secrist valve rebuild job.

Just thinking about this just about makes me cry.

I tend to wonder if they had raised the price to something like $750 and given him $500 of it if he might have decided to stick it out for a while longer, but some people just get really tired of doing the same old sh!t.

He was the absolute master. That's for certain.

[York-aholic]

And if only there were someone to have trained with him but yes, it takes a special person to do the same machining tasks day after day after day and keep the quality to that level.

[MiBrassFS]

I heard (secondhand, but from someone close to AP) that they had a couple guys train and try to back fill for Dave, but they couldn’t/wouldn’t do the job. Sounds like he gave them an until a certain date to get someone in place and then he was done. Art, science, alchemy, he was good.

[bloke]

OK...
I have the King cleaned up, have filled in worn-silver areas on it with metallic paint (as with the Conn), rounded up/cleaned up two cases, and they will likely disappear from here on Monday morning.

The King's late 1940's body had MANY places where the silver was worn down to brass, and it's 1960 silver bell (probably formerly with gold on the interior) had been completely buffed down to bare brass, so I had to completely paint the bell interior silver.

I DID go back with gasoline and a rag and cleaned the light overspray off the silver plated Conn body...so that weird line (just below the body elbow) is now gone.

Once these are delivered/billed...then CHARGE !!!!! into the high school stuff (before marchin' band camps).

I stored one high school's stuff underneath MANY gallons of shelved containers of motor oil...That high school is the FIRST one that needs to be completed and delivered back to the school, so I parked their stuff there...since it will be sitting there the shortest amount of time. (ie. "What if one or more of those things begins to leak...or if one of those shelves collapse, etc...) The barn is jam-packed, and someone's stuff had to go there.

[bloke]

...so here are the 1947/1960 King and the 1920's-1960's "mostly Pan American" sousaphone (like Conn 14K), along with a couple of scrounged/repaired/cleaned cases. I'll stick 'em together Monday morning and deliver 'em...with an invoice. Each has a Helleberg knockoff mouthpiece included. (I believe I just used up the last of those that I had, as well as other-than-20K repairable sousaphones.)

[bloke]

There's still so much really good stuff up there that needs to be put in really nice condition and sold. Lately I've been pulling down the crappiest stuff and putting it in really nice shape to sell, and it seems like that sort of backwards, because I should be pulling down the nicest stuff that's not really all that messed up and fixing it up to sell, but what people are asking for is the stuff up there that's the crappiest - so down it comes.

[bloke]

Pan American/14K observations:

The Pan American and 14K sousaphones have always been observed by me to be lightweight.

However, repairing the Pan American body branches required some real work.

Comparing the thickness of the "lightweight" Pan American/14K instruments to those made today in the USA makes me realize that those made today in the USA (both USA models) are extraordinarily thin/lightweight.

Obviously, neither of these (repaired in this thread) are "6/4", but - in storage - are some ELKHART model 20K sousaphones. Those made today (particularly in the very last few years) sport over-the-top (bulky/heavy) bracing, and not just on the lower mouthpipe, but all over. Even with far less bracing, my Elkhart bodies weigh just as much as the (in my judgement) paper-thin new ones, which (at least, to me) says a lot. Further, the bracing (including the quantity) on the Elkhart instruments is completely adequate and (typically) doesn't fail and hasn't failed. A whole bunch of extra braces is not going to make up for inadequate wall thickness. To me, it sort of seems a bit like attaching a bunch of braces to a party balloon.

The old King (repaired in this thread) weighs a full 30 lbs. (actually weighed, and not just someone typing in some internet textbox "My sousaphone weighs 30 lbs."
I could argue that 30 lbs. is a bit much, particularly for a smallish 4/4 bodied sousaphone. I marched with one just like it when in the 8th grade (age 12). It was too heavy. This King (which I'm selling) has been my personal instrument for a while. It still feels quite heavy...and I'm the one who stands on top of 10' - 12' step ladders, holds the full-sized chainsaw vertically upward with one arm, cuts off c. 4" - 5" branches in that one-handed method and catches them with the other. (ie. I am a big old ogre.)

[bloke]

delivered/billed.

Hopefully - after or even during marching season - we'll have a discussion about me restoring all the 20K's I have (which are all that I have left), putting NEW silver on them (no paint...ie. NOT "emergency" instruments) and selling them to them. Those would be "in time for the summer of 2025".

...Even though the valves on all of the 20K's in my barn's loft date back to the 50's and 60's, they are better fitting (at least, based on my own observations/opinions) than those they bought new in the past few years...and (bonus) the bodies are not made of super-thin sheet metal.

my opinion : The pistons on the really new 20K's are very close-fitting, and - yet - not built accurately enough to be that close-fitting.

If we make a deal on all of those, I'll be sousaphoneless.

[bloke]

The King had to have a lot more touched up areas in the finish, and the valves weren't as tight as the Conn/Pan American, but the King has a killer sound, and I wish I could have hung on to that one, but whatever.