Sousaphone mystery - would love your insights

[Dave Detwiler]

Dear TubeNetters - and esp. you technician/repair folks,

My son brought home one of his high school's old Sousaphones for us to clean-up and get into decent playing shape for the new marching band season. It's a post-1985 King, and perhaps built not much later than that (looks like it's got a lot of miles on it!).

When we were cleaning the valves, we discovered that the first valve casing has a third valve in it - the very same valve that is in the third valve casing, and marked with the same "3" at the top of it (so instead of the valves showing "1, 2, 3," they show "3, 2, 3").

We figured the horn would sound horrible, and perhaps not play at all. But to our great surprise, it plays fairly well!

I double-checked, visually confirming that the valve in the first casing looks identical to the valve in the third casing, and the holes in the valve don't quite line up with the holes in the first valve casing. I'm guessing they line up enough to make things work, though.

Any thoughts on this, those of you who work with Sousaphones?

And after checking the other three school horns for a possible "1, 2, 1" mix-up (they all had "1, 2, 3"), we're wondering if perhaps the valve has been wrong since the horn was purchased by the school all those years ago. Would it be worth bringing this up with Conn-Selmer (they handle Kings now, right?), to see how we could get the correct valve?

Thanks for any thoughts on all of this.

[imperialbari]

I have no first hand knowledge about King sousaphones. But 1st and 3rd pistons being identical was the norm with some of the B&H/Besson non-compensating tubas. Some trumpet models from other makers boasted all 3 pistons being the same.

Klaus

[ppalan]

I don't know if its universal but I discovered that in high school many years ago. My school had 10 Conn sousaphones (don't know which model) and the 1st and 3rd valves were interchangeable. The 1st and 3rd slides are interchangeable on my YEB-321. I believe the 1st and 3rd valves are as well. (I never tried it but I will later today).
Pete

[Dave Detwiler]

Hey Pete - are you the same Pete in the MCCB? I saw your location listed as Montgomery County, PA. If so, I sit next to you regularly in that band!

[Dan Schultz]

This is an old misunderstanding. Even though you might be able to 'get by' with swapping the #1 and #3 pistons.... they are definitely not identical. Further... a quick check of both the Allied Catalog and the Conn/Selmer Parts Site indicates that there are three different part numbers for those pistons.

[iiipopes]

Sounds like a quick, cheap, but not good, repair done in the past.

[Matt Walters]

Dave,
On King 2340 or 2341 TUBAS, the 1&3 pistons are indeed the same. On the King sousaphones i.e. 2350 with the main tuning slide before the valve section, the inlet port to the number one piston is different but all the other ports are the same as #3 piston. You observed this. The inlet is not completely blocked so that yes, a King sousaphone can be played with a King #3 piston installed in the 1st valve casing. I bet some hack didn't know the difference between a tuba and a sousaphone and ordered / installed the wrong valve.
Because of stuff like this, I check the valve number on even the last valve I put in a casing. If that number is wrong, my old eyes made a previous mistake or this horn doesn't have all the right valves. It should play better with the correct valve installed.

[ppalan]

Yeah Dave, it's me. That's why I chimed in with my little tidbit. See you Tuesday.
Pete

[Paul Scott]

Here's a variation on this type of story. Some time ago I had a top-action 4 tuba valveset that eventually was installed on a tuba. The tuba played well but at one point a technician double-checked things and found that the first valve piston was actually a third valve piston. It had been marked "1" at the factory by mistake. The situation was rectified when a genuine #1 piston was found. Truthfully, the horn didn't play that badly with the wrong piston!