Finetales wrote: ↑Wed Sep 14, 2022 9:19 pm
It would be easier to swap the 88H receiver for a modern large shank and do the same to the 321 (via the receiver from a King 2280 - a common mod for the 321). I'd be very surprised if anyone still made a Remington receiver, let alone one that isn't part of a trombone leadpipe. Maybe an odd small tuba shank would fit a Remington mouthpiece?
I personally play my stock Elkhart 88H with a normal large-shank mouthpiece in the Remington receiver and it works fine, but I should address that at some point.
Though the metal is probably only c. .6mm thick, the difference between that oddball "Remington" taper and a standard taper is slight enough so as it's probably safe to insert a Jarno reamer into the (sheet metal) receiver of an 88H and ream it out to standard large shank (Jarno) taper.
I've done a few, and never ended up going all the way through a venturi's wall.
The size 5 (small end = .500") would be the one needed. They ain't cheep.
https://www.newmantools.com/reamer/SchedulU1.htm
The last weird mod that I did on an Elkhart 88H was to re-bend the action arm (on the one-piece thumb lever - simply "mirroring" the original bend) to feed over to the OTHER side of the rotor (because - due to the way that particular player's hand fit on the instrument - that part of the lever was otherwise bumping against the fleshy part of their hand). It required remounting the cork plate on the opposite side of the rotor, and reorienting the stop arm (heating, removing the li'l bumper arm, and remounting it on the axle) 90° from its original config.
The instrument's owner wanted to purchase some wonky newfangled linkage and do a complete conversion. I laid out the plan, told them there was no need to hang all that uncharacteristic crap on their vintage horn, and that I could do the whole thing for $100 - and with no new parts.
After that, they were so tickled that they wanted their crappy bell (only, not bell "section") to look better, so I carefully stripped JUST the bell, polished it VERY lightly (the engraving looks as crisp as before), and shot it with a coat of clear...yet another hundurd for the po' ol' bloke. (close friend, so both were bro'-in-law priced).
This week (saving on the old worn upper playing slide hardware) I'm replacing all four tubes, replacing the mouthpipe, and replacing the bow and bow cap on an Elkhart 72H for another friend. I've already straightened out their bell section. It had been re-lacquered before, but (apparently) not by a slob, because that engraving is still sharp...but (probably, done thirty years ago) it's all chipping off, and needs it again. I'll probably shoot the bell, main tuning slide bow, and F slide bow (as I removed a bunch of damage from all three of those parts). The F-attachment lacquer looks OK (but darkened from age), so I'll probably mix in a TINY amount of green (translucent dye) and a little bit more than a tiny amount of brown into the clear lacquer that I'll shoot onto those parts...
...I might make a thread of it, but (unlike Wade) minimal pictures and commentary.
The owner and I have an outdoor orchestra show - together - about ten days from now (all schlock: 1812, S&SF, other patriotics, medleys, movie tunes, maybe a Gould, etc.) so it would be a great time/place for them to give it a test blow. (It's a $500 buck eBay pick.)