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[Jperry1466]

Used to be a guy with a Russian name (Sergei or some such?), but I think he mainly did mouthpieces. I believe he was poached from Giardinelli when they moved out of Manhattan. This was a looong time ago.

I could be wrong, but I think he was around as recently as a decade or a decade and a half ago when Matt was already there, and was doing mouthpiece - such as reshanking mouthpieces, whereby I think he would turn messed up shanks down to cylinders, solder another brass cylinder over a mouthpiece's turned down shank, and then put a nice fresh clean taper onto that soldered-over brass tube. I think I remember another Russian name than that, but I can't remember the name specifically.

An older gentleman named Vladimir at Dillon Music repaired, reshanked, and replated a tuba mouthpiece for me a couple or three years ago and then retired soon after that. I believe he was considered a master repairman, and from the miracle he did on my mouthpiece, I would have to agree. (Ha. I'm 72 talking about an "older" gentleman who may have been younger than me.)

[bloke]

Chuck a mouthpiece in a lathe between the throat and the end of the shank, turn the shank down to a cylinder that is a tad larger than a half an inch - so it's not to cut away any of the back-bore, take a brass cylinder and drill it out to the same dimension, or even have some that are already drilled out to that dimension that might already have standard or Euro shank tapers turned on the exterior, solder the manufactured hollow appliance onto they turn down shank, clean up, and voila.

I think what he did was genius.