Fitting brass bell to fiberglass sousa

Repair and modification discussion
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baridrummer
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Fitting brass bell to fiberglass sousa

Post by baridrummer »

Hey all. I'm hoping some people have some experience with this:

I just bought a 24" Martin sousa bell on Ebay (with no returns!) for my Olds fiberglass sousa - the seller said the bell width was 6 1/2", while I measured my fiberglass bell to be 6 9/16" wide. Having been looking for months and seeing nothing closer than a 6 1/2 for a sousa bell, I gave it a shot. So right after it arrived, I tried out this bell with the horn, and it sounds great! The trouble is, the bell collar is actually about 1/4" too small - which means it gets dislodged as soon as I put it down. Has anyone managed to shim such a difference in width for the entire circumference of a bell collar? Or is that even necessary? I already called up Dillon's, the shop everyone around here trusts, but the tuba tech said he wasn't willing to do it. (People have said that he's become pretty pessimistic about repairs lately, which was certainly the case the last time I saw him.) Of course it doesn't help that my sousa is missing one of the bell screw mounts, but I'm pretty sure that having the third screw in there still wouldn't be enough to keep the bell in there securely.

I would really like to keep this bell (heavily tarnished silver plate with the remnants of a gold wash), which adds little weight to the horn and will make a big difference in my sound. Any suggestions?
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