Sousaphone bell hard to pull out

[BopEuph]

So I got a dirt cheap ancient Holton sousaphone. Going to be shipping the valves off for a rebuild soon, which even after that (and the cost of having the receiver/neck/bits replaced), I'll still come out way on top.

The only issue I'm having is, while the bell seems to slip on easily, it takes a good amount of wiggling, spinning, and finagling to get the damn thing off. I'm guessing it's not perfectly round, but I'm going to try some Vaseline to help that cause.

As for the actual problem, it doesn't look dented or anything, but I'm guessing the "roundness" isn't even on the bell and the...socket?

In short, how easy would the fix be?

[The Big Ben]

You could check the roundness with caliper set at one diameter and then move it around to find the high and low spots. If you can get it on the horn but it is hard to get off, it probably isn't more than an 1/16th-1/8th inch off (or less) in one or more places. A few light whacks with a soft headed/rawhide mallet might be all it needs.

I hope you are getting the casings reworked (or at least measured for true) along with the pistons. If the horn is old, the casings could no longer be round with sides parallel to each other so would need to be machined and honed to be true. Once trued, the size of the piston could be compared with the new size of the casing to determine how much plating, machining and honing would be necessary to give a tight but smooth running fit. If only the pistons are rebuilt, you may not get the smooth working valves you want.

[BopEuph]

Thanks. Yeah, Whatever it takes, I know the pistons just need to be overhauled. Buddy fixed all the leaky joints we could find, but the horn still sounds like it's got a huge hole in it. So best guess is bad valve compression (at least the valves still move very well).

I need to talk to the guy I'm sending it to again...I think he misunderstood my "overhaul the valve block to playing condition" to mean make the whole thing look brand new. He was including relacquering (don't care for it) and dent/pit removal (the brass looks fine). I just want the damn thing to sound like a working sousaphone!

[bloke]

For whatever reason, when I encounter old Holton sousaphones those seem to be the ones with the most worn valves. That having been said, if you stumble across a rare offering of a Holton sousaphone valve section in great shape (ex: from a fiberglass one) on eBay for a few hundred dollars, that may be cheaper to swap out and than a casings-and-pistons rebuild on the instrument’s own valve section…??

oval male bell tenons and oval female receivers:
These tend to be stubborn/annoying.
If the 6” harbor freight calipers will extend out far enough, it’s time to (carefully) start measuring across both parts at 12/6, 9/3, 8/2, 4/10, etc., and figure out what’s going on.
The female one (IF oval) needs to be whacked on with a very large rawhide mallet - from the inside - where it is too narrow, and the male one (IF oval) needs to be mashed on against the edge of a wooden workbench where it is too wide - until you have success…and these things are annoyingly springy. I have a cool gadget called a “bell jack“ that doesn’t hardly seem to do a damn bit of good.

[Rick Denney]

Oil the valves with heavy oil (like motor oil) and see if the problem goes away.

Plug the bell socket with an unopened roll of paper towel (still in its plastic) and blow into it, pressing each valve independently. If air doesn’t come out of the bottom of the valve casing, it isn’t leaky valves.

Rick “feel for the breeze” Denney

[BopEuph]

Thanks guys.

Yeah, when I bought this horn, it wasn't in one piece, but the valves were moving and figured it wouldn't be too hard for my friend to find replacement parts for it (as opposed to the other horn offered...I think it was a PanAm? At least some company that's no longer in production). The receiver was actually hard to find parts for, so my buddy put a King receiver on it.

I filled the horn up with water, circling every leak I could find. He patched all the joints that we found had leaks. I tried to play it...and it's still leaky. I figured either we do a complete teardown/rebuild, or rebuild the valves.

There's a guy out in Texas that offered $450 for a rebuild, but said he actually doubts that's the problem, so he'd be going through some other things before replating. $450 for a replate doesn't sound too bad, though, and I've heard good things about this place. He has an "econo" restoration that's much cheaper than that, so maybe the repair would go for even less.

I don't know; I got this horn over a year ago, was starting to get disappointed at my gig calendar, and never finished the project. Now my bass calendar is filling up, and I really want to get my name in the area for sousaphone gigs (there's surprisingly a lot here), so I'm trying to get this done. I spent the lockdown really improving my tuba playing, so I'm ready to gig more than just Easter/Christmas.

[BopEuph]

By the way, here's the half-assed pics I took for the repairman to see: