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I have two shanks (an R4 and R5) made by Doug Elliot. Does anyone happen to know what the difference is between the two? European v. American, size, etc. Thanks!

jspeek wrote:I have two shanks (an R4 and R5) made by Doug Elliot. Does anyone happen to know what the difference is between the two? European v. American, size, etc. Thanks!

I just went to his website ...

http://www.dougelliottmouthpieces.com/" target="_blank" target="_blank" target="_blank

... and looked -- it appears he's changed the numbering system since the two shanks you have were made (IIRC, the "R" is the cup depth they're for, and the "4" and "5" are different backbores). It looks like he was here a couple of hours ago; you might send him a PM and ask (couldn't hurt!).

What you have are two of the "medium - small" backbores (my term, not Doug's) designed to be used on his R cup mouthpieces. They are American shank, as the shanks are not marked otherwise.

I've used Doug Elliott mouthpieces for off and on for quite a while (and nearly exclusively the last 4 years or so with the Alexander). Great equipment and lots of options to try.

He has recovered from a devistating fire and is getting back into production. The tuba shanks have been changed to a different system as described on his website and are no longer available in the multitude of numbered sizes.

The old system numbered shanks were different backbore tapers; 4 and 5 were both pretty standard for American and European shanks, with 5 being slightly bigger. Higher numbers (more taper) were for larger tubas. R4 and R5 (no additional letter) are American shanks; there were also M (Mirafone), E (European), and others (H, MW, A, and A+).

My newer design shanks are shorter and without the numbers. They work well in a variety of tuba sizes with no need for all the different backbores that I made for the longer shanks. The newer ones are also stamped with the year of manufacture, just for reference. I still made all the different tapers to properly fit different receivers.

My intention is for all shanks to fit very close to 1" into the receiver, and be a tight fit with no wobble. But tuba receivers are quite variable, to put it kindly. So any given horn may or may not match up to the intended shank. I still intend them to fit in 1".