ancient Weril silver euphonium - back from the dead
Posted: Fri Jan 07, 2022 8:37 pm
I squeezed this one in "out of order", because I agreed to sell TWO instruments...a jazz trombone (already in their hands - a nice old dark/original Olds "Super") and a four-valve not-expensive euphonium...so I sorta needed to hand this to them, to get (well...) paid.
Weril's build quality was sorta second-rate, but some of their instruments (including these euphoniums) played REMARKABLY well.
DEG - at that time - imported both Weril (from Brazil) and WIllson (from Switzerland). I'm about as sure as I can be that this euphonium is a copy of a Yamaha 321, YET with a large shank receiver and a complete taper-copy of the Willson 2900 bell.
Intonation characteristics are remarkably good (better than several 'fesshunun comp models), and/but (depending on what someone might like) the sound is VERY (surprisingly) mellow.
A nearby private school owned this. FOUR band directors ago, it was brought to me because the connector between the mouthpipe and valve block had cracked in two. I asked them some questions, they NEVER answered, and - shortly thereafter - they resigned and moved away. I asked THREE subsequent band directors if they wanted it fixed and (as they seem to have SEVERAL four-valve euphoniums, and only one or two players), they ALL said "no". The last band director (a tuba player) left to go study with Gene (in Chicago). I explained the situation to the school, told them how long I've been storing it, and suggested that it's time for them to just surrender it as salvage, and (as it REALLY was beat up) they agreed.
It was quite "intensive" (sheesh
) getting this thing back into this condition, but the valves and casings are in good shape, which made it (well...I guess...??) worth doing. I realize that I tend to NOT take "before" nor "during" pictures - when fixing stuff (because I just want to "get it over with") - but it formerly looked NOTHING like this. (You should have seen it "before": It looked MUCH better.... 
)
The picture (falsely) represents it as "dazzling". All of my epic repair work is much more apparent up close, but (yeah...) it DOES look VERY good, now...and (hopefully) the jazz trombone entity will like it, and I'll (finally) get paid for the PAIR of instruments.
I'm going under the knife soon (nothing terribly serious...so you could make jokes, rather than praying for me), but I'm scrambling to get as many people taken care of as possible prior to that, because I'll probably be told some stupid "nothing over ten pounds for blah-blah weeks" crap, afterward.
bloke "After I work my butt off to get something like this in nice/saleable condition, there's STILL the friggin case (latches, handle, unglued corners, raggedy Tolex, filth, etc.) that must be dealt with...oh yeah...and then: 'Do we have a decent mouthpiece that we can stick in with this thing...?' "
Weril's build quality was sorta second-rate, but some of their instruments (including these euphoniums) played REMARKABLY well.
DEG - at that time - imported both Weril (from Brazil) and WIllson (from Switzerland). I'm about as sure as I can be that this euphonium is a copy of a Yamaha 321, YET with a large shank receiver and a complete taper-copy of the Willson 2900 bell.
Intonation characteristics are remarkably good (better than several 'fesshunun comp models), and/but (depending on what someone might like) the sound is VERY (surprisingly) mellow.
A nearby private school owned this. FOUR band directors ago, it was brought to me because the connector between the mouthpipe and valve block had cracked in two. I asked them some questions, they NEVER answered, and - shortly thereafter - they resigned and moved away. I asked THREE subsequent band directors if they wanted it fixed and (as they seem to have SEVERAL four-valve euphoniums, and only one or two players), they ALL said "no". The last band director (a tuba player) left to go study with Gene (in Chicago). I explained the situation to the school, told them how long I've been storing it, and suggested that it's time for them to just surrender it as salvage, and (as it REALLY was beat up) they agreed.
It was quite "intensive" (sheesh
) getting this thing back into this condition, but the valves and casings are in good shape, which made it (well...I guess...??) worth doing. I realize that I tend to NOT take "before" nor "during" pictures - when fixing stuff (because I just want to "get it over with") - but it formerly looked NOTHING like this. (You should have seen it "before": It looked MUCH better.... )The picture (falsely) represents it as "dazzling". All of my epic repair work is much more apparent up close, but (yeah...) it DOES look VERY good, now...and (hopefully) the jazz trombone entity will like it, and I'll (finally) get paid for the PAIR of instruments.
I'm going under the knife soon (nothing terribly serious...so you could make jokes, rather than praying for me), but I'm scrambling to get as many people taken care of as possible prior to that, because I'll probably be told some stupid "nothing over ten pounds for blah-blah weeks" crap, afterward.
bloke "After I work my butt off to get something like this in nice/saleable condition, there's STILL the friggin case (latches, handle, unglued corners, raggedy Tolex, filth, etc.) that must be dealt with...oh yeah...and then: 'Do we have a decent mouthpiece that we can stick in with this thing...?' "
