yet ANOTHER ugly-@$$ Conn 20K repair
Posted: Tue Jun 13, 2023 3:56 pm
A new head band director (roughly a hundred miles from blokeplace) has decided to move from some (not old, and fairly new-ish) Yamaha contras over to sousaphones.
They pulled out five silver Jupiter sousaphones and four (very leaky valves) Elkhart Conn 20K sousaphones.
The 20K's look to be some several decades ago "Wisconsin" overhauls, whereby the pistons look nice, their nickel plating looks good, but all the short-action pistons RATTLE in their casings. (A few here may be old enough to have been familiar with those Earl Scheib-ish "overhauls").
They are scheduled to march in a high-profile parade - later this summer - in DC...and they need all 9 of these.
I've got the silver Jupiters (which were beat-up and missing parts - such as missing PISTONS) all slicked out and ready to go.
The 20K's silver (all of them) are ruddy (besides really leaky valves, but I'm to the finish line (on these four) as far as smoothing them out, getting all moving parts moving, no missing parts, and straightening out their bells (including that one bell "save", about which I posted)...and I've sorted through their boxes of crap and every Jupiter and every Conn has a neck and tuning bits (without them having to buy any).
I picked up the VERY LAST Conn, and I had forgotten that there was NO lower mouthpipe...so (even though I had a pretty good one on a bloke-owned 22K valveset) I dug around in the scrap brass, and found this one (which was folded down flat on both ends and had about eight cracks in it...but - actually - no rot).
...so I thought I'd give it a shot, and this one will be TEMPORARY (for the parade), and later I'll use the BETTER one that I found.
Anyway, if hooked on to a paint store paint shaker
this one now looks "ok"...and (much more importantly) doesn't have any leaks...
...so yeah, I just brazed all the cracks shut and cleaned it up "good enough" after doing "good enough" dent removal (un-crushing).
Hey...If OTHER people can claim that the crap they've done "has no affect on the sound", well - dammit - so can I.
OK...WHY didn't I just smooth out the GOOD one (that I found - attached to that 22K valveset, which - btw - is THICKER-GAUGE brass than a brand-new lower mouthpipe would be) and put it on the last sousaphone...??
Because the band director (and it looks like the money is going to happen) wants me to restore his FOUR Elkhart 20K's (including valves and new satin silver finishes) PLUS buy the FIVE Elkhart 20K's that I have in my attic (NONE of which need valve rebuilds, but need dent removal and new satin silver finishes). End up with a set of NINE restored Elkhart 20K's and hand the five fixed-up-nice Jupiters to the middle school...so I'm holding onto the "better" lower mouthpipe for when I do the several-thousand-dollars-each restorations, and THEN I'll swap this salvaged/saved lower mouthpipe out for the nice one...Otherwise (if the complete restoration money doesn't come through for the 4 + 5 satin silver 20K's) they've got what they've got, don't they?
They pulled out five silver Jupiter sousaphones and four (very leaky valves) Elkhart Conn 20K sousaphones.
The 20K's look to be some several decades ago "Wisconsin" overhauls, whereby the pistons look nice, their nickel plating looks good, but all the short-action pistons RATTLE in their casings. (A few here may be old enough to have been familiar with those Earl Scheib-ish "overhauls").
They are scheduled to march in a high-profile parade - later this summer - in DC...and they need all 9 of these.
I've got the silver Jupiters (which were beat-up and missing parts - such as missing PISTONS) all slicked out and ready to go.
The 20K's silver (all of them) are ruddy (besides really leaky valves, but I'm to the finish line (on these four) as far as smoothing them out, getting all moving parts moving, no missing parts, and straightening out their bells (including that one bell "save", about which I posted)...and I've sorted through their boxes of crap and every Jupiter and every Conn has a neck and tuning bits (without them having to buy any).
I picked up the VERY LAST Conn, and I had forgotten that there was NO lower mouthpipe...so (even though I had a pretty good one on a bloke-owned 22K valveset) I dug around in the scrap brass, and found this one (which was folded down flat on both ends and had about eight cracks in it...but - actually - no rot).
...so I thought I'd give it a shot, and this one will be TEMPORARY (for the parade), and later I'll use the BETTER one that I found.
Anyway, if hooked on to a paint store paint shaker
this one now looks "ok"...and (much more importantly) doesn't have any leaks......so yeah, I just brazed all the cracks shut and cleaned it up "good enough" after doing "good enough" dent removal (un-crushing).
Hey...If OTHER people can claim that the crap they've done "has no affect on the sound", well - dammit - so can I.
OK...WHY didn't I just smooth out the GOOD one (that I found - attached to that 22K valveset, which - btw - is THICKER-GAUGE brass than a brand-new lower mouthpipe would be) and put it on the last sousaphone...??
Because the band director (and it looks like the money is going to happen) wants me to restore his FOUR Elkhart 20K's (including valves and new satin silver finishes) PLUS buy the FIVE Elkhart 20K's that I have in my attic (NONE of which need valve rebuilds, but need dent removal and new satin silver finishes). End up with a set of NINE restored Elkhart 20K's and hand the five fixed-up-nice Jupiters to the middle school...so I'm holding onto the "better" lower mouthpipe for when I do the several-thousand-dollars-each restorations, and THEN I'll swap this salvaged/saved lower mouthpipe out for the nice one...Otherwise (if the complete restoration money doesn't come through for the 4 + 5 satin silver 20K's) they've got what they've got, don't they?