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I should have been a trucker.

I just love shiny stuff and lights.

It's just like Christmas every night!!

YA Know, I've been thinking about spray painting my Selmer Signet frosted silver with a bright silver or chrome interior bell. That would be another "project" though.
I know Nikolas is supposed to be the best lacquer, but I'm cheap. So when I'm in the mood and have time for a project, I'll buy the stuff from a local store and paint the sousa.

bloke wrote:I feel certain that the 4th partial would respond much better, were these instruments fabricated of carbon-fiber, rather than fiberglass.

iiipopes wrote:The real reason: they aren't fiberglass anymore. The bells are plastic or resin. Truth in advertising.

Plain "plastic" is usually too fragile for instrument use - there is usually some sort of stranded patterned or random glass fiber reinforcement in the material to give some strength. "Fiberglass" is just a trade name for glass fiber reinforced thermosetting resin plastic.

I think the next logical step will be molded carbon fiber reinforced plastic - much stronger by weight than fiberglass, so the wall thickness can be much thinner. Once the makers get a handle on how to mass produce it, and the price comes down a bit it will be more common.

Will Jones wrote:I don't think high school band directors always realize the physical harm they are causing students when they make them carry the heaviest equipment on one shoulder day in and day out. And those kids certainly don't realize that the difference in sound is nominal and will macho it out for the sake of the group.

I'm not talking about risk of harm. I think the harm is inevitable, it just happens at different times for different folks.

I agree with this, when I was in H.S. and started to play in a DCI corp (way back in the 1970's) my stepfather had the forethought when they wanted to switch me to Contra (I was a fairly tall and healthy kid) said no, leave him on Baritone. I was a little disappointed at the time, there was an allure to playing the Contra, but some of the contra players I know from those days are having lots of severe back issues.

Back when I was visiting King in the 1970s it was explained that manufacturing a fiberglass sousaphone wasn't any cheaper to do than manufacturing a brass sousaphone. The band directors wanted them, were tired of the annual damage costs associated with the brass sousaphones, etc. so both Conn and King made them - along with other manufacturers. Plus when these horns were introduced many schools (and that's the market) could only afford sousaphones for the football band - mine was one of them - and there many requests to come up with something that weighed less. Fiberglass dropped the weight from 26-30 pounds to 18 pounds which opened up the possibility of more kids being able to carry the things. Band directors were also responsible for the discontinuance of double-draw tubing on the first valve on Kings - so that more bracing could be soldered on for the "sousaphone bow", along with rivets on the bell collar. Oh those band directors!
Now the band directors have decided they would actually like to HEAR the sousaphones, and with the advent of quick magnetic dent repairs they want only brass sousaphones.
The orders for the fiberglass horns dropped off and that's why they're gone from the catalog.
I still keep a fiberglass "Bach" - a "stenciled" King - sousaphone around for jobs where a good horn is likely to get damaged, or when I will have to "stroll". I've cut out marching in parades at this point for some time now. It sounds kinda like a King sousaphone - sans the intonation and projection of course. Aesthetically it weighs 18 pounds. I use the same repair materials on it I use to patch dings in my Boston Whaler.

when I was in high school and was subject to the forced labor of participating in marching band, nobody wanted to be seen with sousaphones. It was very unfashionable. All the band directors wanted drum corps style contras.

bbocaner wrote:when I was in high school and was subject to the forced labor of participating in marching band, nobody wanted to be seen with sousaphones. It was very unfashionable. All the band directors wanted drum corps style contras.

How long ago was that? It differs in various parts of the country. I guess each school district would be different..you have your DCI style band directors and you have your traditional ones. Every school I went to in my school district, we always had sousaphones. Started with Conn 22K's and 36K's in middle school, and then had silver kings in high school. One of our rival schools marched with King convertible tubas over the shoulder.

early 1990s

I don't disagree with that. I think it was all about *looking* like drum corps.

bbocaner wrote:I don't disagree with that. I think it was all about *looking* like drum corps.

If it ain't Show Style, it's No Style!!