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How thick are the walls of the tubing on an average tuba?

One of Moritz's F tubas

SousaWarrior9 wrote:One of Moritz's F tubas

Wasn’t the old German/Czech tradition about very thin brass sheets and then some hammering?

It would be very difficult to define 'average'. The thickness of some of the stuff handy in my shop at the moment:

- King 1240/41 valve section tubing is about .012" wall thickness.
- Miraphone bell thickness measured at the rim is about .010" thick.
- The material thickness at the stem end of that same Miraphone bell is about .026".
- The material at the stem end of a Dynasty M875 'contra' bell is very thick... about .030".


There are no to thicknesses on any part of any tuba that are exactly the same... due to the forming and drawing processes. This is especially true for conical sections. Straight-bore tubing changes when it is bent. The outside of the bends become thinner. All tubing has a seam which is usually thicker than the opposite side of the tube.

The only bells that were advertised as being exactly the same thickness throughout were the old Conn 'Coprion' bells that only appeared on a few trumpets and cornets. These weren't made from sheet material but was copper material deposited on a mandrel through electrolysis.... a form of plating process.

KiltieTuba wrote:

TubaTinker wrote:The only bells that were advertised as being exactly the same thickness throughout were the old Conn 'Coprion' bells that only appeared on a few trumpets and cornets. These weren't made from sheet material but was copper material deposited on a mandrel through electrolysis.... a form of plating process.

Didn't trombones have those as well?

Yes. Conn called it 'Coprion'.... an adulteration of copper and ion. I guess it was an expensive process as it didn't seem to go over very well. I think it's a great concept.