So What's Wrong With the Conn 2xJ Bugle?

[the elephant]

I was not aware that Mark had moved from Mississippi.

[LargeTuba]

Who is the “he” in the post, immediately above?

Mark subscribes here, still lives in Mississippi, and I thought he still owns the tuba I described - as well as a five-valve 4+1 front-action York E-flat tuba…

I did credit his name and quoted him in the post….

Here's the best photo I could find, Image
^A guy names Mark Howl cut this one awhile back, "I have done one. I used a Nirschl valve section, a rotor from a Miraphone for the 5th valve and a bell from a Miraphone Kaiser. It is a great tuba with one of the best 6/4 sounds have ever heard. Pretty nimble too.... I think I paid around $2,700 for all the parts for my project. It was a lot of fun doing too. I initially cut about an inch off each piece of tubing and put it together with duct tape while telescoping each piece inside the next. This allowed me to experiment with different dimensions until it was "in tune" and in C. If I were to ever do another conversion project I would use the same method."

I have some texts with him so I can confirm that it was mark who lived in chicago. He did mention he moved from somewhere warm, (Chicago Winters) and we also chatted about his history modifying instruments, and his past ownership of a Conn 20j CC.

[bloke]

possibly two people…

[the elephant]

Must be. Mark Howle's FB page says he lives in Oxford. No mention of having moved. Having grown up in Mississippi and having lived here again for the last 28 years I can't imagine him moving up to the Midwest without saying a lot about it in advance. However, Mark has done some unexpected things in the past, so you never know.

[bloke]

Must be. Mark Howle's FB page says he lives in Oxford. No mention of having moved. Having grown up in Mississippi and having lived here again for the last 28 years I can't imagine him moving up to the Midwest without saying a lot about it in advance. However, Mark has done some unexpected things in the past, so you never know.

Mark has been building himself an sort-of off-grid-ish ranch - near Grenada, MS - with his second wife.

We had a really fancy greenhouse (we took it down from where it was, but never reassembled it here).
We sold the parts to Mark and his wife for a token amount of dough.

[Mithosphere]

^This one Norman Kept in BBb I think. He did a really nice job re-orienting the valves.

This one, if I'm not mistaken, I owned before the conversion. Valves are reproductions based on one of the CSO Yorks made by a guy in Nebraska. Rotary valve was a St Pete or something similar. As I understood it from the owner, if this is the tuba I'm thinking of, he wasn't too happy with the outcome and overall quality/time that Norm did. A very similar experience as I had with my old King Jumbo valve addition that had such wonky fourth valve tubing (the pictures I was sent before it was shipped back to me were carefully selected so as to hide all of the tubing out of alignment, excess solder, various sizes of tubing, etc.).

[the elephant]

… tubing out of alignment, excess solder, various sizes of tubing…

That sort of crap bugs me to no end. I work really hard to make stuff line up correctly. I guess I expect others to be like this, too. But sadly, this is not the case. I actually take photos at odd angles to allow me to locate stuff that I am not catching in three-dimensional space. The only issue with that is when you take a really nice photo, but due to some weird lens effect what is perfectly aligned looks wonky in the photo. That *also* bugs me to no end. HAHAHA!!!

This was to be an "alignment check" photo. I think it came out *quite* sexy, despite my poor skills as a photographer. Regardless, what I see when I look at it is that, while the 2nd slide's outer legs are straight, the 2nd crook leans a tiny bit to one side, and the pull ring base is not centered. Still, it's a nice pic…