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New Project. No, the two 186s and the 345 are all still being worked on; I have not abandoned them.

I am only in the early research stage of this one, though, so it is mainly drawings, photos, and a lot of measuring.

The old, detachable-bell King 2341 with the 19" bell was the genesis of this instrument. In 1980 John Simpson and George Tuthill of the Sky Ryders Drum & Bugle Corps (Hutchinson, KS) worked with designers on the King PowerBore bugle series to produce a large contra. My corps owned the original eight hand-built prototypes. They were built in pairs, each horn differing from one another in small ways (mostly in braces) with each pair of the eight differing in many ways from each other pair.

The production horns were very good, especially the early ones that were closer to our prototypes. They became less good over time as King sought cost-saving measures. These mostly were to use more off-the-shelf parts and fewer parts specific to these horns. Every generation was more compromised than the previous one, except the final gen, where they figured out some things that not only saved a few bucks but improved ergonomics and playability.

Then they stopped making two-valved G bugles. Zig Kanstul had designed (or contributed to the design of) all the horns except for these contras. It is a pretty interesting story that I may tell some other time.

I have two of these horns, one having been traced back to the Blue Devils (the horn was built in 1989) and the other was built in 1981, which was the very first production year. Only 16 of these horns were produced and sold between the 1981 and 1982 seasons, and this one was one of them. It probably was not one of the eight (or ten - I think they had two backups) owned by BD because it lacks the Minick-made "spring braces" that kept the bells from snapping off. It does have what looks like a reinforcement brace from his shop, however, and the only other corps to buy these that first year was from San Jose (the Raiders). I think mine may have been one of those horns. If so, I have a few photos that I took at a show that would have to have this horn in them, which is a fun idea for me.

The two differ, as I said, by generational upgrades (downgrades) that King introduced every couple of years. For one, the valve sections of the two horns are mounted at different angles to the horns.

The *main* difference—IMHO—is that the older horn uses a much heavier bell, which was the stock 19" 2341 bell. It has thicker brass and a steel rim wire. The later horn uses a special "lightweight" bell with thinner brass and no wire. (The K-90 is a very bell-heavy horn, and this was a way to make them more attractive to the players, but they are not very strong and the horns seem to suffer from less projection in a stadium.)

The third difference was more esoteric, but it affected the playability of these horns. The King .687" bore valves are at the end of a very long run of cylindrical tubing. The neck tapers from the receiver up to .687" in just nine inches (or less) and then it stays at that bore for about SEVEN AND A HALF FEET! Upon exiting the 2nd valve there is a crook that expands a small amount, then there is the small end of the bugle, the first component of which is a straight tube about 20" long. It tapers up from about .708" up to .840" (or thereabouts) — or it was SUPPOSED to. All eight prototype contras had this tube.

The first few changes the production horns had involved braces placement, and the angle of the valve set. But also, this nicely tapered tube was swapped out for a long piece of outer slide tubing with a big-ass flare at the last inch to fit the much larger ferrule. The tube, in the course of three millimeters, goes from .708" to .840" ID. Three millimeters! Tell me removing that nicely tapered, 20" long tube and replacing it with *that* won't make the horn feel stuffy to the player.

I can confirm: this horn plays great, but you have to push to get the sound out.

The newer horn had come after all the screwing around. In those in-between generations, the 2341 bottom bow was introduced, as was a wider top (front) bow. This shortened the horn and made it taller. This made it even harder to hold the bell up and they felt "floppier" due to the added height above the player's head. Further, the 2341 bottom bow made the centerlines of both sides of the horn parallel, so the bell pointed straight ahead, rather than up 10º when held flat on the shoulder. BOOOO!!! You have screwed this horn up, King!

Luckily, they got it together after a few more years and the last generation of the K090s used the narrower bottom and top bows, stretched the horn back to its original length, and pushed the valve set forward by two inches, shifting the balance point which lowered the apparent weight of the bell that the player had to hold up. It also restored the upward cant of the bell, so it was physically easier to keep it pointed where it needed to be.

Today I did some measuring and then taped some parts together. I discovered how much I need to modify the bugle to get it to play in CC. I had already done this, but I eyeballed it, underestimating for safety. And I missed the mark so badly, too! What my tuner told me was that I had a robust, FAT sounding, tuba in B that was 25¢ flat. The open intonation at that pitch level was nicely accurate. (I did not use valves in this mockup.) To move the horn up to the key of C I had to remove about ten inches. If I can figure out how to do this *for real* it will allow me to use my nice, nickel silver 188 leadpipe I took off the CC 186.

I measured the taper through that 20" long pipe (I have both the tapered and the flared-end versions) every two inches (roughly where the rotary valve knuckles would end) and have discovered that I could install five rotors from Miraphone. They would be in three sizes, starting with the 186 valves (2) and ending with a 191 valve for 5th. The 3rd and 4th would have to be this in-between valve that they make, but that no horn uses exclusively. It is one of the in-between sizes in graduated bore horns. This would give the horn a taper rate very close to that original tube with bores of

1 - .769"
2 - .769"
3 - .803"
4 - .803"
5 - .835"

I have been sharing my early doodlings on Facebook. I can build a pretty standard Miraphone 18X series valve section and place 5th on the bottom where I prefer it. If I do that the layout of this horn could be built as it appears in the illustration below.

The contra (moved up in pitch from G to a flat B natural) was very robust and full sounding. (I didn't lay into it, though. But this horn played well at a high volume as a contra, so I am sure this will not change. The intonation was surprisingly accurate. I was very pleased. HOWEVER, when I got it up to the key of C the pitch became distressingly bad. I had to fake it on the connection points of the leadpipe and the bugle end. I am sure there were leaks, and the taper was all screwed up. I only did that to see how much would have to be removed to get it up to pitch. Once I have a setup that will allow me to test it at that length with a good taper and no leaks I am sure the pitch will be pretty darned good. (Finger crossed.)

I am about to post this and go back to the shop to take some pics for me to study. If I post them here tomorrow, there will be tape measures and rulers and annotations in the pics.

Sorry about that. You get what you pay for, here.



From this drawing, I need to cut out about ten inches, which will come from the 4th and 5th branches (the skinniest ones). This will be from the backside, so I need to take my measurements and my pics and get to work. I will probably get them posted tomorrow. I have to get back to my other three horns after this post, so it is sort of a placeholder for this new project. This one is purely experimental and solely for entertainment and education. I have learned a lot about cutting horns after figuring out my Rusk-cut Holton's hidden secrets. Cutting the BBb 186 to CC was stressful but fun. This should be much easier as I can make this be anything I want in any form that will work. The Holton had to fit back together. The 186 had to look as much like a factory 186 as I could manage. This old contra just wants some love and to once again be able to make music.

I absolutely appreciate your diligence in detailing your processes on tuba repair and modification.

This project is very interesting.

This is a great day! A new website focused on tubas and the great people who play, construct and repair them. I am happy to see you here and also continuing your project work. Keep up the great work and keep posting pictures and text!

Okay, so this was posted on my second day here in this new space provided for our rather old community. It may have been my first post here. I can't remember.

I am currently in experimental mode. I have to do a lot of work on all three of my horns (mostly clean-up work, but some pending big stuff on the Kurath F) and I am taking a mental break from those long-term experiments.

My "Mental Health Staycation" has already started with my screwing around with that tiny Meinl-Weston 182 bugle. Work on it will continue, but I am only a little bit interested in that tuba at the moment. My current "jones" is for this long-avoided K-90 project.

I have decided to turn one of them into the rotary CC tuba pictured above. I reread the entire first post to see where I had left this project. and it was a little different than I had remembered. So I need to do some work. I really like the idea of the bores at notated above. If you did not reread that long post, here they are, and here is the image again.

1 - .769"
2 - .769"
3 - .803"
4 - .803"
5 - .835"

This week I plan on soldering together five .769" 186 rotors (I do not currently have any of the two larger ones) and the leadpipe to see how this works when connected correctly. I have marked the two bugle tubes that have to be trimmed, and may take them off, and run them through the dent machine to smooth them out some. This is risky and cannot be undone. So maybe I'll just think about that for a while.

The smallest bugle branch has also to be cut and turned into a functional MTS, and I have NO IDEA how that will affect things.

Yep, this is stepping off a cliff onto I don't know what.

Anyway, I'll make sure to post photos and a writeup once things get underway.

I'm glad to be working on stuff for my amusement again, rather than dinking around with my valuable work horns, which is rewarding, but can be really stressful.

Here is a photo refresher on all the things I have done in the past to these old bugles, but posted in separate threads.
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I have plans to make a 4p/1r GG tuba out of the other K-90. Here is a collage that compares the K-90 bugle to an old-style 2341 and that shows how I had planned (at one time) to set up the valves on the GG tuba. This would include a tuning slide in the very long leadpipe, with the MTS being mounted topside, like a Marzan tuba, with the rotor coming first, then the piston set.


This photo shows the relative size of the K-90 next to an earlier iteration of my Holton 345 CC…


This was an earlier mockup. The MTS would be as in the illustration. This was the version that was about ten inches too long. The illustration is much closer, but would still require trimming two of the inner branches a few inches each, which would be easy due to the very slow taper rate of this bugle.

So the goal of this project is? ...A Cc tuba with incredible projection? ...A Cc tuba that is taller and more narrow making it more comfortable to hold?...Or you just have this stuff and want to do something cool with it?...

Whatever your answer, i think its awesome!

I marched dci in 2000 and they had 2 corps debuting the new Bb horns..... i thought the switch detracted from corps.. the G instruments were great.

Good luck in this project, im very interested in the result.

Sent from my SM-J327VPP using Tapatalk

Thanks, sir! I am just trying to find a use for all this old junk. It is nice to see these old recks making music once again.

Today I sorted through my several small boxes of rotary valves. I put together a set of five that will allow me to build this into a working test mule. If it turns out to have usable intonation and decent response then when someone asks me, "What can you do with one of those old drum corps bugles?" I can say, "THIS!"

Or it could turn out to be junk. I won't know until I try.

From left to right: Jinbao 195 mm (w/5th porting), Kurath 20 mm, Voigt 21 mm, St. Pete 21 mm, St. Pete 21 mm…


The Jinbao 410 5th valve is in need of a rear cap, stop arm and screw before it can be used. I also do not have any JB slide tubing. I can make the very slightly larger knuckles fit the Miraphone tubing if I can find the missing parts first. However, I have my HOMEMADE 186 5th valve that will fit that stuff natively. But it looks really different, and I want to save all my Mirafone junk for a matched set on something a bit more important than this project.

The rotor at the top with the shortie link arm is the one installed in the leadpipe of my Holton 345 by Bob Rusk. It leaks, and it is only 19mm, so I will work on the leak. (Yes, I can fix leaks around the rotor body a little bit but it marks up the casing and it does not always work. However, the alternative is to toss it, because badly leaking valves suck.)

I really miss playing the k90 I used in VK. I’d like to find one, add a third valve and play it with my alma mater’s pep band.

I really enjoyed that horn.

Same, 100%…

I still need to braze the two 2-piston units together to make a four-banger set. Of course, the ports will be in the wrong locations…

This would not be for either of the K-90s but for some other, future project.

Sounds like the results might be close to the idea of 5450/5450RA.

Best suited for loud and Low, I.E very fun to play.

Maybe you should sell me one of the bugles. I have a spare king 3v set. It would take some serious re-tubing but within my skill set.

Just sayin’

This is my kludged-together valve set for this horn. It is very sloppily done but is more than good enough to do my intonation testing. I do not want to waste my time on either of these old bugles if they are going to be bowsers. I had decided that if this turns out to be really great that I would buy all new valves and do a particularly careful job. I do not, however, believe that this will be all that great — BUT — it could be "good enough" to use on a limited basis at work. I want to give the old girl a fair chance, so I spent a lot more time fitting these disparate valves to one another than I had ever intended. All but one hold compression very well for rotary valves, and the one is not bad at all when oiled. I ended up changing around the valves I would use for a number of reasons, so here is the lineup I have as of today.

5th — 19.5 mm, 1971 Mirafone, knuckle rotated 90º by me to use as a 186-style 5th valve
1st — 19.5 mm, 2019 Miraphone, a leftover from the revealed 1971 186 project
2nd — 19.5 mm, 1978 Mirafone, from a pile of random parts I bought years ago
3rd — 20 mm, 1989 Kurath, from my F tuba (I fixed the leakiness)
4th — 21 mm, 2010 St. Pete, my Holton 345's old 5th valve

I *really* did not want to spend the day cutting custom ferrules, so I only cut two. The rest are not spaced correctly, and for this test mule, I do not G.A.S. I did make a single "stepped" ferrule to allow the transition between the 2nd and 3rd valves.

I also have a good leadpipe to use, and I have created the ferrule to connect 4th to the bugle. So tomorrow I might hook all this mess together and start honking on it.







Here you can see the difference between these familiar valves and my tiny set of .656" Olds rotors…


This is the knuckle I carefully "unbrazed", cleaned up, rotated, and re-brazed to the casing. It is solid and does not leak.

Okay!

I soldered the end ferrules to the valves, and then the valves to the horn. To make it easier to mess around with leadpipes I made sure it had a leak-free friction fit to the ferrule and then taped it into place. I used the N/OS 1978 186 leadipipe (smaller) with the traditional receiver (traditional Miraphone "in-between" taper to the brass pipe with a nickel silver support sleeve soldered over the pipe).

Right now, with no adjustable MTS, the pitch is fixed as a BBb tuba that plays 10¢ sharp.

In short: WOW!

I suppose I will need to play an old 2341 to make a fair comparison, but I do not remember *any* BBb 2341 or 1241 playing with this depth and color, and the intonation of the open, valved tuba is quite good! I cannot get a pedal Bb out of it (yet) but I could never get a pedal G out of the bugle, even when I was marching corps and playing one of these for many hours a day. Compared with all the other sizes of bells the 1241/2341 had over the decades, the choice to use a 19" bell on these horns was a winner; it is a perfect match. For me, with both a medium and a very large mouthpiece it plays well in tune, up to about the F above the staff. (I did not try to go above that for fear of assaulting the sensitive hearing of my cats, heh, heh…) The D above the staff is good; the 5th partial D is predictably flat. The 6th partial F is in tune, as are the octave Bbs.

I cannot stress just how GOOD this tuba sounds, and how solid the intonation is. I hope the low register response is as good as everything else.

The tone and intonation are probably due to the freakishly open wrap of the inner branches, which do not even resemble those of the 2341. The bugle was wrapped this way to give the player a clear view to his left and also to provide a handhold to balance the horn. And I think these design parameters accidentally gave these bugles the playing characteristics that made many DCI contra players love them.

I have more or less confirmed (to me) that King was planning to release this as a BBb marching tuba when that was a craze. There is room for (and an odd tubing arrangement around) two more piston valves where the two-piston cluster lives on these. Fitting in a third piston and its slide would have been very easy. In fact, most of the King Power Bore line of G bugles were seemingly designed with the addition of a 3rd valve in mind. However, when DCI converted to 3-valved G horns, it was pretty clear (due to Yamaha's aggressive involvement behind George Hopkins) that it was a quick step to Bb/F instruments. I guess King dumped these horns because, while adding the 3rd (or 4th) valves would be easy, the wraps would have required a lot of reworking to cut to Bb or F, and I suppose they decided to get out of that field altogether. (And they did for many years, too.)

Also of note in this regard: I put this into BBb simply by removing the machine and one loop of cylindrical tubing. This tuba was designed to be a GG two-piston bugle with a half-step slip-slide THAT COULD EASILY BE CONVERTED AT THE FACTORY TO A 3- OR 4-VALVED BBb MARCHING TUBA. Someone was planning on this happening. Then something high up at King changed, and when DCI also changed, King left the building.

What a shame. This set a lot of things back by ten years in DCI.

This horn has some weirdly tapered branches, with the large ends being cylindrical, SO THAT YOU COULD CUT THEM OFF. Or at least this is how both of my personal K-90s were built. I don't know what King's intentions were, but it really looks to me like this was designed to be cut to BBb and have valves added to it. And they sort of overdid it, making it possible to make a CC tuba out of it, probably with four pistons and one rotary, as the Conn tuba ended up being. While that was based on one of Matt Walter's tubas, this was a much older and more original design with a completely opened-up wrap that plays really well.

It would have been interesting had they done this back in the 1980s. We might all have King 4+1 CC tubas as our 4/4 horns today.

I think this is going to be a very entertaining project that might net me a good work tuba.

The first cut will be to lower the valve section and get the leadpipe under the bell collar; even *I* could not reach the mouthpiece way up there…


Here it is next to the Meinl-Weston 182 F tuba I am turning into a 6-rotor tuba…


Here is my first attempt at a back-of-the-envelope cut chart, based on where most of the cylindrical tubing is hidden. HINT: It won't work. I have to lower the valve section FIRST. THEN I can work out the remaining 18 to 20 inches. But this gives you an idea of how I am thinking about this…

Time for the obligatory cat pic. Ginger loves my new Cronkhite gig bag.

I have received a few questions about why I changed my selection of valves (bore sizes).

The in-b3etween valve is the 20 mm Kurath 5th rotor. Crooks for 2nd slides are not easy to come by for stray rotary valves. I am not sure I can source one easily for this size that has the EXACT same span. I might, but I really need to know WHO MADE THE VALVE, and I don't. It was not made by J. Meinlschmidt for sure. It *might* be one made by Jürgen Voigt, but it is not exactly the same as the Voigt 21 mm rotor I bought in 2014. The case is a little different, but more importantly, the bearings are not the same, so I think not. I know that Nirschl made his own pistons, but did he also make rotary valves? These are Nirschl pistons, so maybe Herr Kurath sourced both the pistons and the rotor from the same guy?

It is an interesting academic puzzle that will not get my horn playing. So using that valve as the second is not going to happen. That means that it either has to be the 1st or the 3rd valve of this instrument.

The first set of valves I showed had it as the 1st valve, with the Jinbao 5th valve on top of it. Then I had three 21 mm valves (the Voigt and both of the St. Pete valves).

I decided that this was too big for this tuba and that it did not really taper that much.

So I moved the Kurath 20 mm valve to the 3rd spot.

Now I realize that I cannot get the needed curlicue runners for a traditional 3rd valve in that size *either* so I don't know what I will do.

This was just supposed to be a test valve set, but it works so well that I sort of want to leave it alone.

I promised myself that if it turned out to be a good horn I would buy new Miraphone valves, crooks, runners, and appropriate inner/outer slide tubing. This is expensive and will put this off for months. I *might* be able to get the funds, order, and receive everything in about six weeks, and that would give me another six or so weeks to assemble everything. So it is within the realm of possibility.

SO, with that in mind…

I *really* want to try out six valves on this most Frankend of tubas.

Really.

There is room, and it is my first original design. All my previous projects have been to clean up or add to something that already existed. I know I like the larger bore 5th and 6th valves on the Kurath quite a bit. I have played a number of rotary F tubas with six valves where the 5th and 6th were the smallest valves, and I did not care for that feel at all. To my way of thinking (Oops! This is getting into the "tl;dr" zone, so Joe, if you made it this far you probably need to skim ahead to the end.) these are normally used in the low register, so they ought to be the largest bore in the stack, all of my 5th valves that were the smallest — set in the leadpipe before the pistons — have been dogs. Moving the 5th to after the 4th piston (the same size or marginally larger) has not lit my candle, either. My favorite setup has been a 5th on the large side of the MTS. For the way I play this gets the best response.

My Kurath had the 5th between the MTS and 4th valve, but it has a 40 mm tapered tube between the valves, so it moved from 19 up to 20, which helped. So I want to figure out how to rug up the 5th and 6th rotors that are after the 4th rotor at the bottom of the stack, using traditional levers on the outside half of the top bow, so a more traditional 4+2 arrangement like Miraphone uses on some of its F tubas.

This is a tuba I am hoping to use specifically to play low excerpts on, so the 6th valve *should* work out to have the same benefits as one used on an F tuba.

If I use all Miraphone valves, the setup will be:

1st/2nd — 19.54 mm (.769")
3rd/4th — 20.35 mm (.801")
5th/6th — 21.26 mm (.837")

I will pay Miraphone to install a larger exit knuckle on the second of each pair to make the assembly flawless. Trust me, this type of custom work is worth every penny. So 1st would be a normal 186 valve, and 2nd would have an exit port that is 20.35 mm, and so on.

I know I can purchase all the runners and crooks that natively fit these valves, along with all the needed straight tubing. Spending this ton of $$$$ will remove ALL the "sourcing" (read: scrounging, trading, buying, begging, hunting, burning time, etc) that I would have to do and guarantee that everything fit together perfectly. No more doing battle with the flute headjoint expander to get parts to match end-to-end. Fewer hassles.

I did not want to do this unless I was sure the horn would play in a manner that would merit such expense. As a BBb tuba, it definitely will. So before I buy all this stuff I have to cut it to CC, and that will be a PITA as the cuts shown above will not actually work. The ACTUAL segments of straight tubing are in the middle of some of these long inner branches, so I will have to make custom ferrules from the offcuts because I do not have any of the sizes that will be needed. I have a LOT of measuring and farting around to do. But I am pretty confident that this is going to be a "work-worthy" tuba, in the end.

So yeah, this will end up as a SIX-VALVED CC tuba. It will have a machine with three different rotor sizes, built from all new materials. The valve section will be removable, as with my Kurath and Holton. The leadpipe will be a 186 pipe that I will bend myself to fit the mess I create. The removable bell will stay removable because (unlike a lot of the Frankentuba community, apparently) I *like* the way these 19" King bells play. Most of y'all seem to want to replace them with York bells. I am just fine with what I have here. It sounds great to my ears.

And — finally — I fully intend to have at least the bugle of this tuba silver plated. I'm sticking that one out here right now so that later when I wimp out and say that it will be raw brass, one of you kind readers can drop back here and quote me on this to set me straight. ••• I want this tuba to be silver plated. ••• If I start to backpedal on this you are authorized to give me unrelenting crap about it until I give in and get it done. Thank you for your persistence in this, by the way. BAHAHAHA!!!

I think this is going to be a great tuba for me. As always: fingers crossed…

Another "Elephant" project to follow along with and learn from! Terrific!

Measure twice — cut once.

No.

Measure 50 times — measure again — hold off on cutting anything — AGAIN.

After hours of farting around with a tailor's tape measure, a calculator, calipers, a marker, and blue tape, I have figured out exactly where and how much each cut must be…

… and now I don't want to do it.

Maybe it should just stay in BBb?

But there are tons of King BBb tubas in the world. This one will be particularly good, but still…

… ah, crap… why do I keep doing this to myself?



Here are the 4th and 5th branches from the other K-90. I will likely cut these two and preserve the older ones. The crook #1 on the horn I am building was bent by hand and is a disaster, shape-wise. The bow #2 is so severely pitted that I am afraid a large hole is about to open up — like two or three inches long!) These parts are in much better condition and are more accurately shaped than on the older horn.
_________________________

1. MTS Crook — 8" wide (will need a brace) — I wish I could make the legs more than 3" long.
2. 4th branch
3. Runner (connects #2 and # 1)
4. Ferrule (to be retained)
5. Ferrule (to be retained)
The blue rectangles represent the MTS legs.
The red box shows where the 6th valve will go.



Here are the issues with the 4th and 5th branches of this contra, which is why I am seriously looking at swapping them with the other horn. The thin area is *really* thin and needs a large patch. If the other horn gets built I will take care of it at that time.


Cool beans, man…

I think I will try to make the CC version out of the lesser of these two contras. I do not mind having a patched-together GG tuba for my personal amusement, so cutting everything and then putting it all back using a lot of homemade ferrules, while a complete PITA, will allow me to test the waters before cutting the better of the two instruments.

Because the BBb setup I have right now is fantastic, and I worry that I will take away from that.

So I think I will cut the 4th and 5th branches as in the photo, but the apply that mess to the other horn. If it turns out to be spiffy then I'll cut the "good" contra and see what happens. If it suffers then I will leave what I have in BBb and build that out.

One thing is for sure, though — the bugle does need to be flipped/rewrapped to pull this off, as the MTS is very hard to cope with if left as it is.

I reversed the photo to see how that would look and how the valves would nest and it is much better.

So, the other contra is such a beater and has that lightweight bell that sucks, so I will disassemble it first, de-dent and re-round all the branches and bows, then put it together "flipped". Then I'll install the same leadpipe/valve setup to see how similar it is to the "good" contra as a BBb instrument. If they are pretty close and the intonation is more or less the same then I will cut the lesser horn to see what happens to everything.

Here is a photo of the rear of the setup I tested the other day, reversed so that it becomes the front, but flipped…