Question about finish on Eastman and Wessex york tubas

[Triggerfish]

Does anyone know what type of brass these companies use for their tubas? I test played a lacquered Eastman 836 the other day and it looked like gold brass not yellow, and the employees were unable confirm this because the information for the tuba just said "lacquered" in their database. Same for Wessex, their website says "gold lacquered brass" not just gold or yellow brass, so are these companies just using a finish that looks like gold brass or actual gold brass? I'm interested in this due to gold brass being more resistant to red rot.

[Matt Walters]

Most Eastman EBC-836 tubas are made with Yellow Brass. I understand they have built a few special order ones with a gold brass bell. You might have seen one of those?

[Kermit]

Does anyone know what type of brass these companies use for their tubas? I test played a lacquered Eastman 836 the other day and it looked like gold brass not yellow, and the employees were unable confirm this because the information for the tuba just said "lacquered" in their database. Same for Wessex, their website says "gold lacquered brass" not just gold or yellow brass, so are these companies just using a finish that looks like gold brass or actual gold brass? I'm interested in this due to gold brass being more resistant to red rot.

Hello! I can't speak for Eastman as when I worked for a retailer, that information was not widely available. Chuck Kerrigan is who you would want to talk to about that. I actually work at Wessex in the Chicago showroom. I've talked to Chuck (our Chuck not Chuck Kerrigan) a lot about this in the past year about why we use a lot of Gold brass, particularly in our higher end models. From my understanding, when you see Gold-Lacquered Brass on our website, it is referring to the bell portion being gold-brass and the rest of the horn is more or less standard with the rest of the industry. Saying it's Yellow Brass or Gold Brass is not as specific as one may think. There are variations within that range of what could be described as yellow or gold brass (sometimes gold brass ends up looking very rose if it has a lot of copper or very yellow if it has the minimum amount of copper to be declared gold.) It was our goal with the Chicago York and Presence models to get as close as we could to the original metal composition used in the York that everyone is familiar with.

Utilizing different types of brass can help change the sound quality/maintenance schedule of the instrument, particularly in the lead pipe and the bell.

Hopefully that sheds some insights. I'll do my best to answer any other questions you may have on the matter.