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For those repair folk,

How many of you have ever toyed with making an Upright bell for a sousaphone? Making it into a Raincatcher. It doesn't seem like a very difficult thing to do (aside from Matching the Collar size, making sure it will be in pitch, etc). I know Dan has made a Helicon out of a sousaphone, but why not a Raincatcher?

I bought my sousaphone from a local tuba enthusiast, who had gotten someone to cobble up a raincatcher bell for it. It looked like the bell flare from a sousaphone grafted onto a brass trashcan. I left it with him when I bought the sousaphone. That was something like 25 years ago, and I think he's deceased, so who knows what became of it.

The late Harvey Hartmann created a Conn "raincatcher" by grafting a Conn tuba bell to a Conn sousa body (not a 20K). It really is a great playing horn.

I am using it in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2JWEzeVgsM

Here are some pictures that Harv sent me before I bought the horn:







The bell is about 20". I have since acquired an original raincatcher, which has (as I recall) about a 21" bell. To tell the truth, I like the way Harv's horn plays BETTER! (The original horn does need some valve work, in it's defense!)

I have different Martin tubas and sousas with detachable bells. The upright bells, including the Stofer/Kanstul reproductions fit perfectly on the mammoth Sousa. I need to take a picture... But it's late

The complication is that, you will notice, on "original" raincatchers the 90° bend goes with the bell only, and on modern sousaphones a 90° bend goes with the body and a 90° goes with the bell.

In fact, for a short time, Conn made JUST the 90° bend so that you could match a raincatcher with a sousaphone bell to "update" it!

The long and short of it is that, as bloke says, many bell-up tuba bells will mate to 90° bend sousaphone bodies to make "instant" raincatchers!