Re: King Bell-Front Rotary that needs some work
Posted: Tue Jan 15, 2019 10:27 amDan Schultz wrote:I've owned (and sold) several of those .750" bore rotary Kings. Not bad players. The fact that this one appears to have complete linkage (less a string) is a plus. The only problem I've notice with them is a pretty flat 4th valve circuit... not difficult to fix by eliminating the 'curly-cue". Don't go looking for a factory upright bell for one. I've assembled bells for them but the bell throat is huge and the tenon can only come from a giant sousa or has to be fabricated from strip stock.
Maybe I'm stating the obvious here: It's pretty typical of instruments from that era that the 4th valve tubing was pretty flat, because at that time it was not intended to replace the 1&3 combination. It was meant only to be used to extend the low range using the 4th valve plus the octave higher fingerings for the low notes much as the 4-valve compensating system does. Of course it isn't as precise, but in the hands of a good player it offered pretty good results.