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Sorry it took so long...this is the dent that opened the low range on my B&S F. Instantly. Obviously it was the rim of the mouthpiece that made the dent, but I have no clue as how the mouthpiece hit in that exact spot. I just remember being scared I'd really messed something up. Just the opposite.

When I take this horn to a repair tech, I always say (especially to someone I'm not famiiliar with) "if that dent is touched I don't pay."

You obviously hit a node or antinode perfectly. Congratulations! I have the same thing with midline D on my Besson BBb. It is in perfect tune, thanks to a slight dent in the knuckle connecting the 1st & 2nd valves. Being dutiful, at one point I had the dent taken out. Then D went as flat as on my Miraphone 186, and all of a sudden it took a lot more air to play. So I took a ball peen hammer and gently tapped, trying intonation after each tap, until the D came back into tune and some resistance built back up in the valve block. The side effect is that my 7th harmonics are also playable in tune: top space G with 2nd alone and top space Gb with 1st alone.

iiipopes wrote:You obviously hit a node or antinode perfectly.

That's what Bob Tucci suggested, sight unseen, a few years ago. There have been so many skeptics, in these parts, that I wanted the evidence to be out there. No proof, not without doing the math, but I have little real interest in that. All I know is it works, and others have concurred.

eupher61 wrote:Sorry it took so long...this is the dent that opened the low range on my B&S F. Instantly.

How much would one have to pay for your great hands and mouthpiece to bring new life to their previously dull and uninteresting horns?

Do you think that method might work as well applied to certain of our political leaders?

windshieldbug wrote:Do you think that method might work as well applied to certain of our political leaders?

It might knock some sense into a few, but completely knock out the majority. We should be much better off in both instances.

Many years ago, Dan Perantoni had an Alex F. Mr P swore that intonation of one of the “problem notes*” was remedied instantly and permanently as the result of an accidental dent. He never had the dent removed.

(*I have no recollection now as to which note.)

Anecdotal evidence – yes, but it does parallel what the OP has presented.

Scooby Tuba wrote:Side note: I think that when a really great technician works on your horn and it comes back playing better than you expected, in ways you didn't expect, the tech probably removed stress from the area on which they worked by carefully soldering, etc. things back together. The opposite can be true as well. Forcing a horn back together and using gobs of solder will stiffen up a horn's resonance PDQ...

I agree. When I brought my Couesnon tuba in to a tech to get the lead pipe bottom bow, tuning slide, braces, and some other stuff get soldered back on, it came back playing worse. They definitely put in some nasty stress points.

We need Rick to chime in on this one....!!!

Rick wherefor art thou?

Keep bumping this til he posts!

MA

Well, MA, as I've said before, Bob Tucci speculated about a node or anti-node at that point, or very close by. He had a picture of it at the time. Good enough for me, since he was in on the design of the horn.