Smashed bell

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Tom Gregory
pro musician
pro musician
Posts: 147
Joined: Fri Mar 19, 2004 9:04 am

Smashed bell

Post by Tom Gregory »

My poor B&S pt10 took another beating yesterday. Sadly, it was my fault. I didn’t zip the bag before throwing it over my shoulder.
This is maybe the 3rd or 4th time I’m going to have to have the bell rolled and dedented. How many times can this be done before the bell would be in danger of tearing? Has anyone tried to get a replacement bell from B&S?
We have some good repair folk up here in the north east but I’m just wondering about options. I love this horn and am not inclined to replace if I don’t have to. Some of you, I have seen, do miracles with some pretty badly damaged instruments.
Wishing all of you a happy new year.
TG
toobagrowl
5 valves
5 valves
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Joined: Mon Aug 02, 2010 3:12 pm
Location: USA

Re: Smashed bell

Post by toobagrowl »

If you like your bell on your tuba and yet it has been smoothed out 3 or 4 times, it might be a good idea to get a good brass tech to 'spot-anneal' the bell, repair it and then lacquer it.

Saw a video on YT of a good brass tech do this with a badly-damaged trombone bell. The brass tech marked the deep creases and dents with a magic marker, then took a torch to those areas until the marker spots disappeared, letting him know those spots have been annealed. Then he took the dents/creases out and carefully buffed away the old damaged lacquer, cleaned and degreased it, and relacquered the bell. The bell looked nearly brand-new afterwards, and was the original bell :idea:
Tom Gregory
pro musician
pro musician
Posts: 147
Joined: Fri Mar 19, 2004 9:04 am

Re: Smashed bell

Post by Tom Gregory »

Joe, I might be taking you up on that. The best brass techs I know around here are horn techs and sometimes back away from big tuba projects. I’ll let you know once they get back to work.
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