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Hello! I have not played regularly in over 10 years. I have a 1968 Soviet made Leningrad with an irregular bore that I would like to start playing, but the mouthpiece pipe is a different diameter. I need to get a new receiver or mouthpiece I guess... and later the thing needs an overhaul. In Arkansas, any advice? Thanks!

Cross the river into Tennessee and go see Joe Sellmansberger at Mid-South Music in Williston, just the other side of Memphis. He'll fix you up, with the mouthpiece issue and whatever else your horn needs. Joe is a professional tubist and posts frequently on this board as "bloke".

https://www.facebook.com/midsouthmusic79" target="_blank

Here is an old thread that may help

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=39050&hilit=leningrad+tuba#p3

The Leningrad was the fore-runner of the St Pete. It had no removable receiver, just a reinforcing sleeve on the end of the mouthpipe.

The mouthpiece is probably "Small European" which is smaller than American standard. The diameter at the tip of the shank would be .490". For a quick check, the Kelly Mouthpieces website quotes the receiver/mouthpipe opening for small Euro as being 0.56" (American standard is .58", European is .59")

The Denis Wick 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5 mouthpieces (with no L in the number) have this shank size; most tube-netters seem to favour the DW1 for BBb, or the DW 2 or 3 for EEb. There are also one or two (metal) models on the Kelly Mouthpiece website with the right shank, and I think Perantucci XS sizes may fit (but don't quote me on that). This shank-size used to be available for special order from Bach (but that was decades ago - don't know if they still offer this service).

In the custom area, there is a small Euro shank available for the Selmansberger "Imperial" (a three piece mouthpiece), and Doug Elliot has the right shank in his three-piece range.

Thank you all for your responses. You have definitely given me enough to work with.

Hi!

I recently sold an EEb of the same brand and vintage. The original mouthpiece was in my opinion rather useless, it was extremely small almost like a lead trombone mouthpiece

What I did, was I got a basic small shank Denis Wick 4 and had the shank trimmed down. This was a nice match for me and worked really well on the tuba. I normally play DW-mouthpieces on most of my instruments, and I chose a smaller mouthpiece for this quite small tuba.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/304 ... wshank.png" target="_blank

The picture shows the DW 4 before trimming it down. This was an easy job and did not cost much. The mouthpiece was used and no harm done.