Redoing Lacquer on a sousaphone

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DiveBomber
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Redoing Lacquer on a sousaphone

Post by DiveBomber »

I am a high school student currently, and my high school band director wants to purchase a couple of new sousaphones so all of our tubas look the same at competitions and performances (currently we have about a dozen practice tubas that are really beat up and ten nice ones we use for competitions) he wants to purchase the new ones specifically because the marching band is going to the maceys thanksgiving parade this fall and he wants us to look good. In the past we have never had an issue with having more of the performance tubas then players but for the past three years we have had 11 or 12 players, so you would think maybe getting a couple new tubas would not be so bad but the problem is that our high school is overcrowded and the district is building a new high school that will open in a couple years so buying a few new instruments just to have a band program split and not being big enough would be a waste of money. My band director was looking at purchasing the tubas and then "selling" them to the new high school when it opens, but it is unclear how that would work. I have no idea how difficult it would be to take the last little bit of lacquer off the ageing instruments and to refinish them the same color as the new ones, I got this idea because my neighbor is a big car guy so he was a sand blaster that would probably do the job. Any advice on how I should proceed would be appreciated.
Tabor
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Re: Redoing Lacquer on a sousaphone

Post by Tabor »

This isn't a case where most of the sousas are silver and some are lacquered brass, is it?
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Tabor
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Re: Redoing Lacquer on a sousaphone

Post by Tabor »

If the issue is just the look, the new sousaphones are lacquered brass, and you want the old sousaphones to look newer for the parade, have your director price getting the dents popped out and prepare to polish the bare brass areas to a mirror-like finish just before the parade. Maas polish does a nice job, doesn't smell bad, and doesn't cost very much, because it doesn't take much to get a nice shine.
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thejester10276
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Re: Redoing Lacquer on a sousaphone

Post by thejester10276 »

Tabor wrote:If the issue is just the look, the new sousaphones are lacquered brass, and you want the old sousaphones to look newer for the parade, have your director price getting the dents popped out and prepare to polish the bare brass areas to a mirror-like finish just before the parade. Maas polish does a nice job, doesn't smell bad, and doesn't cost very much, because it doesn't take much to get a nice shine.
+1
DiveBomber
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Re: Redoing Lacquer on a sousaphone

Post by DiveBomber »

Thanks for all of the advice it is very helpful
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