Some children (not all, obviously) continue to destroy instruments worse than ever.
I believe the favorite thing for children to do (who play sousaphones) is to try to remove the necks without loosening the tension screws. I believe this is because they are physically (lacking finger strength) unable to loosen the tension screws - that (sadly) combined with (quite a few of today's children) the illicit or prescribed use of substances which impede logical thought. Indeed, many adults (who mostly only type and drive) don't possess very much finger/wrist strength...and combine all of this with a child's lack-of-predicting-consequences mind, and destruction is inevitable.
Here's a LOWER mouthpipe tube from (in my opinion) a so-so-yet-high-priced (due to instruments being re-wholesaled to dealers in the USA - rather than bought straight from the factory) make of sousaphone. It was twisted completely flat and also bent.
I could have bought new, but I have been taught (via experience) to not rely on parts being in stock, and I've also found that the parts prices have become highfalutin. I really couldn't spend more than a half hour straightening out this part (and there is MUCH more to do...scrounging and replacing destroyed main-to-first-slide braces, as well as replacing mouthpipe receiver braces...so - using too many techniques to go into and working extremely fast - I self-imposed a time-limit "fix" this (a half hour)... I'm in for my second cup of coffee (and I have to HURRY to get this one done prior to leaving in an hour and a half for a LONG gig... but here is my definition of "good enough" for this part:
I've expressed quite a few opinions, here...but don't believe any of them to be based on misjudgement.
