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Nice job (no surprise), bloke.

It's sad to think that once back in circulation, the beauty likely won't last

bloke wrote:no more pictures...

I keep telling myself, "next project, I'll take more pictures" - unfortunately, I don't have the discipline to follow through.

I actually admire those of you who can accomplish this

roweenie wrote:I keep telling myself, "next project, I'll take more pictures" - unfortunately, I don't have the discipline to follow through.

I actually admire those of you who can accomplish this

I probably have the opposite problem: no problem taking pictures, don't have the discipline to do any repair projects.

I admire more those of you with the skill and discipline to do that.

bloke wrote:I only do it for filthy lucre

Even doing it for the filthy lucre. I could never fix things for a living. I'm much more adept at breaking them.

Do those stick on guard wires provide any protection at all? Are they stiff enough to do anything to prevent damage?

Nice job as always bloke! That reminds me of way back in high school (so many memories from that time) when the band director had two old H.N. White-era King sousas -- a King 1250 and a 1270 'Giant' sousa refurbished/overhauled, complete with de-denting and new silverplating. Long story short, the upperclassmen got first dibs on the newly-refurbished King sousas. We were doing a space-theme show that year (E.T., Star Wars, Star Trek, etc.) where we had to run over to the frontline, put our sousas down quick, put on our 'alien' masks, and play cymbals for a short tune. The player on the King Giant kept putting his sousa down too hard every time -- I could hear the buckling of the brass every time he put it down hard on the ground. The bottom bow kept getting more and more crushed in until it was pretty much crushed in halfway and completely out of round. I got to play that sousa after he graduated, and I thought it played and sounded great, even with the crushed in bottom bow. I took it to the "fix it man" so he could re-solder the wire at the top of the female bell tenon because it kept coming loose. He was called "Dan the fix-it man" who did on the spot repairs free for the band. He blamed me for the caved-in bottom bow because he never noticed it until I had that sousa I told him it was already like that from the previous player, but he stated that the bottom bow wasn't like that before
Kinda pissed me off that old fart thought I did it, even though I was always carefull with any sousa I was playing

Just remembered to respond to this.....

bloke wrote:If he was the one who did the overhauls, I bet (trying to get the old concrete/asphalt scratches out of the bottom bow) it was HIM who buffed the CRAP out of that second branch (resulting in wall thickness similar to that found with the current-era King/Conn sousaphones)...so - in reality - it was HIS d@mn fault.

The band director (RIP) sent those sousas off to "the Midwest" (probably Borodi Music?) to be overhauled during the summer, right before my freshman year of high school. "Dan the fix-it man" was just a local guy doing repairs on-the-spot for the school. The local repair guy in town (who was really good, and has since moved his way up in a well-known music company) stated that Dan brought in many repairs to him because he basically f*cked up those repairs One of the sousas had a large crease taken out of the bell, complete with deep scarring. I asked one of the other sousa players how it happened, and he told me that Dan didn't set up the sousa securely on the wall-mount, and the sousa fell to the floor, so he had to repair that large crease. Did I mention how Dan had to re-solder the bell wire a couple times? That was all almost 25 years ago, but I remember it like it was yesterday. Yeah, Dan the fix-it man was, um, something else....

This kinda crap never happened to our fiberglass Sousas...