ELKHART (original/the best) production Conn sousaphones (lower mouthpipe bracing)

[YorkNumber3.0]

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[bloke]

With the most recent edition/version of the >>> 20K <<<, the sheet brass is still very thin, but they've gone really overboard with braces and put unnecessary braces on places that are not needed. Without accomplishing anything, those braces add weight, whereby the weight should have been added in (back to) the sheet metal, rather than in additional non-functional braces. I don't know if you've seen the latest version of the 20K, but basically that supporter for the loopy thing (that you showed a picture of previously on a >>> King <<< sousaphone) has been converted to a pillow block, and there are now two of those loopy things attached to it. College children (who refuse to loosen the tension screw on the receiver) still easily manage to tear those off the instrument, as the braced neckpipe functions as such an effective lever for popping those loops loose and bending the lower mouthpipe tube. Of course the pillow block doesn't get torn up, but the lower mouthpipe still gets torn up. Those cost a couple hundred bucks, so lately I've been repairing them, particularly as replacement parts from that company are so slow in being supplied.

I don't have any customers telling me to do this, that, or the other. I just have them tell me to fix stuff. I don't really have any sousaphone customers that aren't band directors. Even the tuba-playing band directors (one of whom who has bought a few of those brand-new 20K sousaphones with that silly double-loop pillow block thing) aren't particularly interested in the details, and - were I to attempt to discuss this stuff with them - their eyes would probably glaze over.

After the summer insanity is over, one school is going to have me restore their four Elkhart 20ks and buy five or six more from me to also restore. They are getting rid of a not particularly old set of previous head band director inherited Yamaha contras (he's a wise man, in my opinion) and five Jupiter sousaphones (which I repaired well, so they would have them for this fall) which will eventually be passed over to the middle school. When I restore those 20K's, they will be restored with Elkhart-style cast braces in the tripod configuration with the additional surface area of soldering offered by that bracing style. I anticipate far fewer problems than with those loopy things. Due to the geometry, one of those loops seems to work pretty darn well with >>> King <<< sousaphones (per your pictures), but that style of brace on a 20K just doesn't offer any substantive bracing. Due to the geometry/angles, the loops have to ascend upward too far, and at too steep of an angle, and was a poor decision to shoe horn that reasonably effective >>> King <<< loop brace design onto the 20K, other than (??) cost.

All of this having been said, every design change to the 20K - since the Elkhart days - and to the King - since the days that Mrs White ran the company - have been detrimental, in my view.

This was a ton of rhetoric, so here is the summary:

The loop/arc brace for the neck receiver - which was designed when King 1250 sousaphones became 2350 sousaphones - works pretty well on the KING nstruments, but really no better than the original bracing style on the 1250 - particularly since the brace flanges are now smaller and round than the original diamond braces on the 1250, but it's not bad, and with a more blobby thing going around the King neck receiver lately, they work a little better, but the Achilles heel is still the small/round socket flanges at either end of the arc. The 2350 - including this new style of brace was nothing more than a way to make King sousaphones less costly to build, all of the subsequent design alterations in the 2350 since it first came out have also been related to reduced manufacturing cost, in my view.

Attempting to shoehorn this style of brace onto a 20K - which works fairly well on the King 2350 - was a terrible idea, in my view.

When children - from age 12 to 22 - refuse to loosen the tension screw on the neck receiver, any type of bracing system can be easily defeated.

rec brace.png (61.7 KiB) Viewed 702 times

[YorkNumber3.0]

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[bloke]

I ain't "mad"...I'm just surprised that any band directors (anywhere) would be interested in "the style of sousaphone lower mouthpipe bracing" (whether better, worse, or equally strong). If I worked for a "store" (etc.) I would do as I was told (just as when choir directors - under whom I might be contracted - conduct well-known works at wrong tempi: I play what I'm told, and say nothing (etc.)

People who own their own sousaphones - well... - they don't tear 'em up...and who privately-owns marchin-bear-tones?

...and it's not that "I do as I damned-well please"...It's just that there aren't any band directors who've ever told me what to do...
...and my only boss is Mrs. bloke. She can repad a helluvan oboe, but - as far as sousas are concerned - mostly she occasionally holds them at weird angles, possibly loads pistons/slides with corks/felts (laid out for her), or whacks on dent rods - when dents are so severe that rebound action is called for...I just have never had a head band director call me back in their office and say anything resembling...

bloke, I really need to discuss the specific types of sousaphone braces I'm going to need on these instruments.

Yamaha is too big for their breeches.
They make ONE OK tuba - a YFB-621 - and ONE conditionally-great tuba (if someone really wishes to own - hands-down - THE BEST 6/4 piston C) a YCB-826S.
I just don't see tons fesshululz playing their stuff. ie. clarinetists: "If I only had a Yamaha..." etc.
Most of their stuff is "consolation prize" grade (as far as playing characteristics), and - with notable exceptions: as one example, the YBS-62 bari sax (though fragile, and - stupidly - way too often dragged outdoors) is absolutely amazing, etc...
You probably believe that I view Yamaha as affecting my JP sales. I sell very few new instruments...It's a parenthetical sideline for me...but THE REASON that I sell JP is because it IS a parenthetical sideline, and I can drop-ship without having to first have instruments sent here, because they almost never arrive with anything wrong...and this is a stark contrast to some USA-made instruments I sold - back during the brick-and-mortar days.
Yamaha is usually "good enough", but the pricing is about 100% over what they deliver (OK: imo) and (to a certain degree) is based on (as with so many things) promotion...and boy do they "promote" to those band directors...the proof (tuba-wise) being the astonishing quantity of YBB-641 tubas I see (having been bought by schools) vs. (roughly the same price) Miraphone 186 tubas (which can actually be played in tune fairly easily, and with nice crisp rotor action)...and the (due to thin wall construction, just as with modern-era USA-made sousaphones) epic damage that the YBB-641 tubas routinely suffer.

I do type WAY to much...part of the fault is that I'm a very fast typist, and usually browse the web via a computer (not a phone) with a full-size keyboard. The rest is that I use coffee to get me through my workdays. (Part of what y'all read is the caffeine talkin'.)



I DO like your new emoji...
"Alfonzo the Ethiopian Tuba"

[YorkNumber3.0]

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[bloke]

re: Griffith/Knotts...

I enjoyed it when they recycled some of their little (originally 1960's) skits on (80s - 90s) Matlock.

"big...BIG-big !!!!", the judo demonstration, et al...

[bloke]

Regardless of the bracing system (very old/current/transitional)...

I (honestly) don't see much actual RECEIVER damage to King or Conn.

Again...I see lower mouthpipe tuba damage/destruction (and further-beyond, if allowed to go on to absurd extremes), once those two (or - in the case of the latest 20K's) four small round socket flanges (either end of those arcs) are torn loose (via children's refusal to loosen the tension screw).

reporting on experiences...not contradicting/arguing.

Of course, there's another widely-sold make with only slide-tubing-thick (I'm guessing: .6mm) receivers and only sheet-metal-thick (about the same) receiver (lead-soldered on) tension rings.
I have to keep a bwutt-lode of those in stock, because those are routinely trashed throughout each fall (even if no braces are torn loose).

Conn and King have strengthened their receivers (simply) by starting out with very thick-wall tubes, and lathe-turning them (so as the tension ring and the rest are - these days - one solid piece of brass). This is actually a manufacturing shortcut that ALSO adds durability (though children - who are really determined - can still manage to...by hook or crook...destroy those as well).

bloke "When I retire, I play to teach a course on sousaphonics at the community college."

non sequitur...
I'm thinking/hoping (peering out the window...) that some JP marchin-bear-tones just now arrived via FedEx.
Rather than using my parking area (past the left Y in my road) they came up to the house (right Y) delivered the box at the house, backed up, and used my super-steep gravel side road (which heads down to the smaller catfish pond) to turn around. It took them three or four maneuvers, but they did it (and without getting stuck and also without hitting the pasture fence). ' impressive...