Dillon had Pat Sheridan mouthpiece models long ago when the 983 was new. Inspired by his playing I tried and loved the PS3 on my Boosey Eb (still couldn’t play like him, darn it!). Look around for a used one.

King Sousas are the Rasputin of Sousas. I have an Eb that has a severely crushed outer branch, is painted with metal flake paint for some reason (it’s brass, not fiberglass!), bell screw flanges long gone so I just threaded the bell collar. Still, it plays. My Bb King Sousa keeps breaking one brace ...

I got to play it with my community orchestra, and as was pointed out, the tuba brings the piece to a sort of false ending before a spirited recapitulation, which I took as representing the titular American of the tone poem at the end of a long night (or wee hours of overindulging in Paris; our hero ...

Prices have gone up a bit since I bought something similar off Amazon a while back but still cheaper than the brass round ones, these help quiet noisy valves if they are not too worn overall.

Hagerty’s in liquid form works well and isn’t as stinky as the aerosol. Goddard’s works, in my perception not quite as good but adequate. I recall getting polish from Lowe’s and Ace hardware, but don’t recall which came from where…..

Good work Rick! I did similar spectrum analyses of tuba sound 25 odd years ago as a way to have fun learning sound analysis software for work, and found similar results: shallower mouthpieces producing more upper harmonics, correlating with “brighter” sound. Try a trombone and watch the peaks march ...

Hopefully the building repairs and upgrades are done so more events can be watched on YouTube. Always hard to pick which thing to see when they overlap, while also finding time to drain one's wallet in the Elephant Room and clog one's arteries in the snack bar. Fingers crossed there will be no ...

Neat horn, I have a similar horn from 1928 that I quite enjoy; mine has extra bends in and after the third valve circuit keeping the slides from sticking out beyond the body. Mine also says “LP”, presumably low pitch which is in keeping with a proclivity to play flat. If I yours does not play flat I ...

I had a similar horn, the small bell is the bomb! I loved the sound, the intonation tendencies took a bit (or a lot, actually) of getting used to. Depending on the weather, the ensemble, or maybe the moon’s phase, I would need a sousaphone bit to bring it down to pitch, which also had the ...

I have a Besson bell on a king Sousa, and it fits but the Besson is 2” larger and sits lower than the king bell, so the bell has to be rotated a bit to the left if you are attached to seeing what’s in front of you.
Example:

I like lanolin for slides that are a bit too eager to move, lanolin lets them move with a yank yet not slooowly drop from gravity. Yes, I tried slightly misaligning the tubes. Downside to lanolin is it needs to be re-applied frequently, so it’s good that a lifetime supply is cheap from Amazon as ...

Fascinating stuff, the oddest to me is this beast

https://www.juliensauctions.com/en/ite ... l-tarogato

Had no idea metal tarogaotos (tarogati?) were a thing, much less desirable enough to inspire counterfeits?

Lee Stofer has a 3 valve for sale, maybe not quite what you’re looking for, but you can be sure it’s solid if he’s had his hands on it.

Assuming these are the usual size valve guides, try nylon #3-48 or M2.5 screws, you can buy 100s on amazon cheap, so if you mess up some it’s not a huge loss, and hopefully end up with quieter valves without wearing out the slot in the casing.

Get a short piece of pipe insulation or pool noodle to stick the mic into, hold this assembly inside your bell with gaffer’s tape. Just gaff if you are not particular about your horn’s finish. While some fancy condenser mic might be better, a 57 is adequate.

Another engineer here. industrial flavor. With no theoretical background whatsoever I arrived at roughly 1/3 mineral oil to 2/3 lamp oil by trial and error, with the vague notion “wow, that’s a lot of mineral oil!” Nice to see some justification for my mad science. Yeah, probably will have to muck ...

Before a professional cleaning, you might be surprised how effective just running rags through the valve casings and wiping off the valves can be. Agree that frequent oiling beats searching for the “magic oil”.

I have a 1959 King, which is fairly comparable I think: top of my first valve slide is not pullableeither. I note with interest that additional brace near the tuning silde, the lone brace joint on the other side of my tuning slide is prone to breaking solder joints.

In the “OK for the money” category there’s the Gleam stand (look at Amazon or online shop of choice) for $25 or less. It’s a decent steel stand with a sold desk that can be removed for transit, handy for paper music held down with magnets (the stand has built in springy steel wire arms of dubious ...

$2000, and don't forget to budget for back surgery bills bills from holding it up......