fixing an old 20K with old parts

[arno bakker]

Goodday y'all!
I own a pretty old (1946) 20K with a rotten lower tube. The tube where the sousaphone rests when standing upright.
One of the options to better this instrument might be to buy an old sousaphone body and replace one or more tubing parts.

At the moment I am looking at a presumably 38K with the right bell receiver size. With no proper marks or serial numbers. So this might be a bad idea in the first place. This is the sousa body I am presently looking at https://www.ebay.com/itm/405009359866?m ... name=11051

I know they used to bend these instruments by hand, so theoretically no 2 parts are the same. And possibly the 20K and the 38K are not alike enough. And this Ebay body might not even be a 38K. Or in the old tuning.
So, I would like to find some expertise on the do's and don'ts. Call me crazy or give me tips...
Anyone with some clear ideas on this ridiculous and iffy idea?!

All the best!
Arno Bakker from the Netherlands

[arpthark]

If the sousaphone is as old as it looks, the model number should be stamped somewhere around the bell collar. You might ask the seller if they can poke around and confirm.

[bloke]

Those large Brazil-made Weril sousaphones (if USA-imported: Dynasty) are in the process of falling apart and the valve sections falling off of them, these days.

You might see if someone has a Brazil-made 6/4 sousaphone body in their junk.
I'm not certain, but I'd wager (ok...only $1) that those sousaphones' outer bows are very close to interchangeable.
(The bells are within a tiny smidge of being interchangeable...like "add grease".)

[MWoj]

Hello all!

Speaking of old 20K (like before 1970), do new 20K 'short action' valves made recently fit older 20K sousas?

-Martin.

[bloke]

Hello all!

Speaking of old 20K (like before 1970), do new 20K 'short action' valves made recently fit older 20K sousas?

-Martin.

I tried to drop some Elkhart 22K (same as Elkhart 20K) pistons into a 2023 Eastlake, and it would NOT have been fun to make them fit.
That having been said, DOES (??) that imply that the (again, I haven't found them to be always perfectly round) new pistons would - then - easily drop into 1950's/1960's short-action casings...(???)

bloke "Don't take my word as gold...I'm just one person relaying one day's experiences with one random grouping of old-and-new parts."

[MWoj]

Hello all!

Speaking of old 20K (like before 1970), do new 20K 'short action' valves made recently fit older 20K sousas?

-Martin.

I tried to drop some Elkhart 22K (same as Elkhart 20K) pistons into a 2023 Eastlake, and it would NOT have been fun to make them fit.
That having been said, DOES (??) that imply that the (again, I haven't found them to be always perfectly round) new pistons would - then - easily drop into 1950's/1960's short-action casings...(???)

bloke "Don't take my word as gold...I'm just one person relaying one day's experiences with one random grouping of old-and-new parts."

Thanks, Joe. My reason for asking is that several years ago I bought an old 20K sousa from someone on the old Tubenet site. The horn plays pretty well (good enough for some outdoor playing), but the valves are really worn.

-Martin.

[bloke]

You also probably need to figure out how much the casings are worn and/vs. how much the pistons are worn.

If a local school has blown $12K of taxpayer dough on one of those thinwall new ones, ask if you can use their pistons to test your casings...eh?

The more I work on those things (and I've worked on them since they made some again for a short time in Abilene, quit, and - way later - started making the current "facsimiles" in Eastlake), the more I decide that those valve are really nuisances...

...The old ones well well-enough made (if not worn out), but - if you get the felts just a little bit off - the passages are so very narrow that the thing will barely play.

The conventional valves (and you surely know this) 14K, Pan American, 32K, 36K, 38K...are all the same .734" bore size as the 20K, and they sure are easier to deal with. Sometimes, people will sell off a 36K fiberglass pretty cheap - because the body is coming apart or the bell has chunks out of the plastic flair...' maybe something to consider...

...ie. a "what if" $600 torn-up 36K with really good valves, and (if your 20K 5th-branch-and-beyond is/are in pretty good shape) with the 36K valve section good at least through the main tuning slide...