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I found a small 3/4 besson tuba at my local salvation army for only 75$. valves are good, no major dents or pings in the tubing. only problem bell has a large crease in it.

i have a great Bb, but i'd like a cheap (and i mean cheap) bass horn to mess around with. It is possible or feasible to cut it to an F or Eb.

To make a BBb into an Eb, you're going to have to whack 4 1/2 feet of tubing out of the open bugle and also remove 25% of the tubing from each valve circuit. That's pretty tough to do without having a dramatic impact on the conical bore.
I'm finishing up making an old Blessing BBb into an Eb over-the-shoulder (Civil War fake) tuba. To get rid of that much tubing I scrapped the complete bell and the whole bottom bow, and added back in a short conical section and an upright bell from an old euphonium. With all the cutting and making some stuff out of my junk box, this has taken about 40 hours of work. It's been a slow week as far as making money is concerned!
Harold is correct. You are in for an uphill battle with 'iffy' results at the best. Sell the BBb and buy what you want.

Well, I'd keep the bottom bow and bell and valves and scrap everthing in between. The taper after the valves is going to have a huge effect on intonation.

Chuck(G) wrote:Well, I'd keep the bottom bow and bell and valves and scrap everthing in between. The taper after the valves is going to have a huge effect on intonation.

The rate of the taper hasn't changed... just the length. The intonation of the open bugle is actually pretty good... within 20 cents or so. Now, all I gotta do is fix all the leaks in the valve circuits It's going to be good enough for a bunch of Civil War freaks.

TubaTinker wrote:

Chuck(G) wrote:Well, I'd keep the bottom bow and bell and valves and scrap everthing in between. The taper after the valves is going to have a huge effect on intonation.

The rate of the taper hasn't changed... just the length. The intonation of the open bugle is actually pretty good... within 20 cents or so. Now, all I gotta do is fix all the leaks in the valve circuits It's going to be good enough for a bunch of Civil War freaks.

No--my answer was to the original question--how might one turn a BBb into an F.

So what tuning do Civil War reenactment bands use? Old high-pitch (ca. A4=452)?

Or does it matter?

Chuck(G) wrote: No--my answer was to the original question--how might one turn a BBb into an F.

So what tuning do Civil War reenactment bands use? Old high-pitch (ca. A4=452)?

Or does it matter?

I suppose there are a few purists who would insist on REAL period horns pitch at whatever was fashionable at the time.... at a cost of zillions of bucks to outfit even a small band. I think there are a couple of guys building reproduction instruments but I don't have a clue about how they are pitched. I would think it would be goofy to build high-pitch horns unless a fellow wanted to play lots of solos! Our local 'Red Banks Reunion Band' is actually emblematic of Civil War bandsmen who got back together a couple of decades after the war... so they don't have to conform to any particular period. The horns I build for them are modern pitched. They play period music but the uniforms and horns are pretty much 'whatever' as long as the period runs from 1850 to perhaps 1920. As long as it looks old it's OK.

punk_tuba wrote:I found a small 3/4 besson tuba at my local salvation army for only 75$. valves are good, no major dents or pings in the tubing. only problem bell has a large crease in it.

i have a great Bb, but i'd like a cheap (and i mean cheap) bass horn to mess around with. It is possible or feasible to cut it to an F or Eb.

If you can convince any of the great tuba repair specialists to do it, I'll bet they would only charge you $5,000 or so.

I would do one of two things.

If I played B flat tuba I would use it when I wanted a small contrabass tuba (eg. brass quintet) and/or as a back up tuba for jobs like parades, some bar jobs, some strolling bands, if your other tuba gets damaged, etc... I like the idea of having a back up for may main tuba.

If I really wanted a bass tuba, I would try to use it to trade (or at least as part of a trade) for an E flat. You may even find an old E flat with four valves that someone would want to trade. I honestly doubt that a trade for an F tuba would be possible without a fair amount of extra money on your part.

I would not try to cut the horn and most likely ruin all of its worth as a tuba or as a trade.

best of luck,
Mark

punk_tuba wrote:i'd like a cheap (and i mean cheap) bass horn to mess around with. It is possible or feasible to cut it to an F or Eb.

Well sure, it's possible... but cheap and possible...

Mark wrote:

punk_tuba wrote:I found a small 3/4 besson tuba at my local salvation army for only 75$. valves are good, no major dents or pings in the tubing. only problem bell has a large crease in it.

i have a great Bb, but i'd like a cheap (and i mean cheap) bass horn to mess around with. It is possible or feasible to cut it to an F or Eb.

If you can convince any of the great tuba repair specialists to do it, I'll bet they would only charge you $5,000 or so.

An then.... there wouldn't be any guarantee

Here's a BBb cut to Eb:





The rest of the story is on my 'projects' page.

TubaTinker wrote:Here's a BBb cut to Eb.

Why would anyone play a horn like that when you have to bend over to do it?

windshieldbug wrote:

TubaTinker wrote:Here's a BBb cut to Eb.

Why would anyone play a horn like that when you have to bend over to do it?

I figure you're just yankin' my crank.... but these horns were made to march with. The bell stack rests on your left shoulder and points backwards.

TubaTinker wrote:I figure you're just yankin' my crank....

Sorry... yes, but that's why I used the 'emoticon'... thought you might find that kind of response humerous!

(But that IS the first BBb cut that far that looked usable, my compliments!)

windshieldbug wrote:

TubaTinker wrote:I figure you're just yankin' my crank....

Sorry... yes, but that's why I used the 'emoticon'... thought you might find that kind of response humerous!

(But that IS the first BBb cut that far that looked usable, my compliments!)

Thanks. I played it for a couple of tunes during a Dixie rehearsal Saturday morning. The intonation is actually pretty good (no worse that some of the other Eb horns I have!)

BTW... what's the story on the toilet seat horn in your avatar? If it's a 'for real' configuration, I might like to build something like it one of these days.

TubaTinker wrote:BTW... what's the story on the toilet seat horn in your avatar? If it's a 'for real' configuration, I might like to build something like it one of these days.

The avatar is a c. 1876 catalog drawing of a Henry Lehnert "Centennial" Euphonium. They were, in fact, real, and are now highly sought after, partly for their rarity, and also for the design. The story is that I liked it, and it somehow seemed apropriate, because I do have a Lehnert Centennial horn, but it's an Eb alto valve trombone. I have a picture of it here, along with just a couple of other horns I have (I had managed to get >60 pre-ebay). Although it was built to high pitch, even when one pulls it out to modern it is the most consistant and in-tune alto I've played.

windshieldbug wrote:

TubaTinker wrote:BTW... what's the story on the toilet seat horn in your avatar? If it's a 'for real' configuration, I might like to build something like it one of these days.

The avatar is a c. 1876 catalog drawing of a Henry Lehnert "Centennial" Euphonium.

Those are some interesting horns on the site you linked.... especially the Schmidt F horn. Funny.... one of the local pawn shops often calls me to help identify horns they put on auction. Last week, they had a F horn that they wanted to post as a Conn 6D. The horn did indeed have a Conn (Elkhart) bell on it but it wasn't the bell that came on the horn. The body was clearly of European manufacture... three rotors and one piston... like the Schmidt wrapped horn shown on your site. I think about these Civil War 'fakes' that I build and chuckle... wondering what someone is going to think when one of these frankenhorns turns up 200 years from now

TubaTinker wrote:Last week, they had a F horn that they wanted to post as a Conn 6D. The horn did indeed have a Conn (Elkhart) bell on it but it wasn't the bell that came on the horn. The body was clearly of European manufacture... three rotors and one piston... like the Schmidt wrapped horn shown on your site.

Yeah, I did see that horn they called a 6D even though there was a lot of solder left over from the old joints in the pictures, and it clearly had mechanical action. There WAS a 6D with a Schmidt wrap, but it sure wasn't that horn... Although it's nowhere near the same league as your horns, I wonder sometimes, too, what they'll think if they ever find the G alto trombone I built with matching serial numbers from a silver plated King trombone and a silver plated King cornet... G alto ??