the elephant wrote:I then (stupidly) stripped another tuba with lacquer that was in excellent shape and less than 20 years old. It made zero difference, even in feel.
Lacquer has changed as have the methods to apply it. Stripping a new horn would be foolish. Stripping an old one needs to be considered and then reconsidered and the thought about once again. Think about this for about a YEAR before doing a modification that will cost HUNDREDS OF DOLLARS to un-do and will involve massive buffing (read: thinning) of the walls of your tuba. If you want to get a horn silver plated it needs to be a very thick horn to start with or you need to just buy one that has factory silver plate, because the same stripping/buffing process will be applied to it.
FWIW, there is a good reason pierso20 wants to strip the 1290. My wife did extensive "dent work" on that horn a few years ago. I had Lee Stofer more or less rebuild it, BUT told him to not spend any attention on cosmetics. After the extent of work done, the horn has a very uneven finish. However, Lee's work did wonders for the playing and sound of the horn, a reasonable tradeoff.
