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Franken-Wurli-Conn 28J Monster
Posted: Tue Aug 11, 2015 12:34 pm
by davidgilbreath
Re: Franken-Wurli-Conn 28J Monster
Posted: Tue Aug 11, 2015 7:53 pm
by davidgilbreath
With pleasure. The horn was previously mentioned in an old thread two years ago. I decided after Bloke did the "make playable" reconditioning that I wanted to keep it as my final tuba. Joe removed some absolutely awful dents (bulking up his biceps in the process), made it a great sounding horn when he played, and I was thrilled. That autumn, when he was in Gainesville, GA, I took it to Joe a second time for a quick eval about some funky sounds I was hearing. That brief time with him convinced me that this horn was worth keeping and I didn't want to put any additional $ into it. (What a crazy thought that turned out to be.)
Fast forward to Thanksgiving 2014. I played the fool out of it with my group that's going to Israel and my carpal tunnel in the right wrist was killing me whilst trying to mash the valves. I happened to be talking with Lee Stofer about that time and mentioned my issues with the carpal tunnel. Lee said if I wanted to convert it to a front-action, he had a valve cluster from his 1926 Wonderphone bell-front and that it was the correct bore. I mulled it over the next four weeks and when Lee came through Atlanta around 31 December from his folks in South Carolina, I asked him to take it back to Iowa and convert it, which he did. Anderson's took care of the pistons and casings and they are lickety-split fast. I drove out to Lee's on Flag Day this year and got to hear him play it in an outdoor concert. He sat next to a strapping young lad with a Willson CC Tuba 3050 FA-5, matched him in volume, and I heard that distinct sound I fell in love with in 2013.
The horn has the same dimensions as the original 1926 Conn 28J Monster, except the bell is 20" and it weighs 22 lbs. In the middle of the 1910's, Conn became concerned that they were losing sales to York. They knew about the York alloy and and experimented with their own version for about 10-12 years. My bell stack, bottom bow, main wrap are made from Conn's "Yorkish" alloy. It has a slight pinkish tint, which is visible in another pic I have, but Lee did some colored buffing and it's not quite so apparent, but that's okay. It holds its own with 14 t-bones, four horns, four euphoniums, and nine trumpets in my Sons of Jubal Brass group.
Lee completely disassembled it and re-soldered it. It is so tight and leak-free that I need to use a sousaphone bit with it for tuning, as well as ergonomics.
I left my 5/4 Kanstul 900-4v with Lee on consignment and bought a Rudy Meinl 0 mouthpiece from him for some of the low and slow pieces we perform. BTW, I hope the pics are visible as I have trouble occasionally with Photobucket.
Re: Franken-Wurli-Conn 28J Monster
Posted: Tue Aug 11, 2015 10:08 pm
by Bob Kolada
Sweet!
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