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A friend of mine gave me most of a contra-bass bugle. It is complete from the bell to one piston valve. There is nothing after that. From the looks of it, I believe it was originally one of the GG contras with 2 piston valves. I guess the easy thing to do would be to find a valve and the right leadpipe to make a fully functioning contra again. What I'm CONSIDERING, though, is to try making a contra-bass tuba in F (a full octave below a standard F tuba). I know it's a toss-up whether or not this would make a tuba with manageable intonation, but I think I would be fun to try, nonetheless. What do you all think I should do? I'm open to other opinions.

I am all for experimenting with beater instruments, but this sounds like a ton of work. The valveset is roughly 1=36", 2=18" and 3=57". If you add fourth valve, it will be ~96" (8'). You will also need to add approximately 32" to the bugle... and no guarantee that it will fly high.

I'm going to get some measurements tomorrow and post them on here to see what you all think. Again, it was just a thought that crossed my mind. I haven't committed to anything yet!

It's an F.E. Olds & Son Ultratone from Fullerton, California. 16 inch diameter bell. The serial number on the valve is 018641.

What do you all think?

Is the one remaining valve a whole step?

If so, how's the intonation with the valve down?

If it's decent, find a 3 valve BBb valve set, route it into the horn where the bore matches (fingers crossed), and pull the slides out to the correct lenghts, and you have a sub-contra FF tuba (kind of)...

I can't test intonation. It literally only goes from the bell to the valve. No first valve or leadpipe. I believe the remaining valve is a half step.

The thing to do with that is use the bell on a O-99/4J/2J tuba. I guess the piston and rotor could be used for 4/5th valve conversions on that same line of tubas.