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Hi everyone,

I received my new to me 4V Martin Mammoth Sousa in satin silver with gold wash bell and have done a prelim tarnish removal, cleaned up the valves and all eight slides (5 were stuck, 3 required light tapping and some torch). A few dents here and there, but nothing bad for being 90 years old. Fortunately it looks like there has never been a resolder type of repair on this horn and it has its original mouthpipe receiver. Silver is about 98% intact. Unfortunately, these are hard to locate and I do not want to have my Martin modified. My other Martin has a Conn receiver and a custom neck made from a cut down old style king with the bits from a Martin 3V tuba I modified about five or six years ago.

After reading up on some old posts on the best source for replica Martin bits and necks, I tried contacting Martin Wilk through his website over the weekend and making a couple phone calls today at the # listed on his website, but have not been able to get a hold of him. The phone rings and then just dead air. If anyone knows of an email or some other way to contact him, or if he is just on a long holiday, that would be helpful. I would love to buy a gooseneck and bits to be able to play this horn.

Below is a link to the album with some of the pictures of the horn before and after clean up. There is still work to do, but it's pretty enough for my front room Please let me know if the link doesn't work, I'm relatively new to Google shared media.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1mg5Zg ... aoluNWRmSm" target="_blank" target="_blank" target="_blank

Update! Heard from Martin Wilk. It worked. I'll let you all know how it plays once new bits and neck are acquired. Thanks!

Wow. That is something special.
Congratulations!

Thanks for indulging our curiosity!

Is cool!

Wow! A beautiful horn. A very nice Christmas present to yourself. Enjoy it!!

Yesterday, I received replica Martin sousaphone neck and bits from Martin Wilk. I am very pleased with the attention to detail with some improvements over the originals. I have added additional pictures with the 4V sousaphone and the new neck and bits, and some comparisons to the original Martin bits that came with a 1935 Mammoth top action tuba that has since been modified with a different, "fixed" leadpipe. I use these with my other Martin Sousaphone, which is going to just look pretty on the wall since the silver 4V horn plays even better because it has never been "econo-overhauled" and the valves are not leaky. The 4V will continue to go to gigs where a sousaphone is allowed or I can get away with it .

To make due for a while and get through several Christmas gigs, I did obtain a Bundy sousaphone neck (pictured with the tan sparkle paint), which did fit the horn and played fine with some modifications, however, the ergonomics were not as good as the Wilk reproductions because Bundy necks are slightly shorter. To get the martin bits to fit, I had to take about an hour to slowly lap in the bits as the receiver in the Bundy neck was slightly small.

Overall, another satisfied customer for Mr. Wilk. He is quite the machinist as he even replicated the braces in the Martin style to match the horn. Not that fit is confirmed, I will send them back to him soon and have them silver-plated to match the horn.

Updated pictures in the Google link below.

https://drive.google.com/drive/u/0/fold ... aoluNWRmSm" target="_blank