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Has anyone tried to make a tuba mouthpiece with a brass body and a stainless steel screw on rim?? The few SS mouthpieces I've tried havent had the color of the sound I like that the brass mouthpieces do. But I love the feel of the SS rim's so I figured this would be a good compromise.

Any thought's?

have you tried the Sidey SSH? it is not a heavyweight style mouthpiece, infact it is rather thin and light, like a regular helleberg and it has a nice color to the sound, I think.

ken k

Stainless steel doesn't always get along well with other alloys. There is the possiblilty of a screw rim seizing (getting stuck) on the brass. I believe that the shape and mass of the mouthpiece has more to do with sound color than does its metallic composition.

I've had access to an older style helleburg with a screw rim, and i thought itd be fun to try my LOUD SSH rim on it. I dont think it sounded better than the SS cup, but it could be due to the fact that my horn doesnt sound good with the helleburg cup, even the LM7 doesnt work well with my horn.

Yeah, but think about it -- does anyone ever really change rims that often? I, for one, prefer traditional brass mouthpieces for indoors. But if I had a hypersensitivity/allergy to brass or silverplate, as my son does, a surgical stainless rim would be one option, depending on how you reacted to it, just as titanium, gold plating or a lexan rim are options. The fact it may seize up to me is actually a good thing, unifying the mouthpiece so it responds properly to what you put into it.

When I was studying under Rex Conner at UK in the very early 70s, he designed (and had our physics department make) a stainless steel screw rim with a brass body. I can't accuarately recall the exact models he used to design it, but I believe Rex said the rim was patterned after a Schilke and the bowl was patterned after a Herrick design.

He used to rub a concoction called "Silver-On" onto the interior portion of the bowl. It looked pretty sharp plus the coating prevented a bad metallic taste.

I used this mouthpiece on my fiberglass Conn, MW 25, and a Cerveny CC that had fishing line connecting the valve linkages

I still have it and I use quite often on my 25J in order to brighten the sound.