Nail Polish on a Kelly

[imperialbari]

Now that you will be so adequately equipped, make sure you get a good recording (for sharing!) of you playing the piccolo solo of that striped and spangled march.

Klaus

[imperialbari]

Would you want a blending pattern of melting ice cream like this one for your national colours?

I donºt like those patterns too much, so I eat my litre of icecrem very fast and with great dedication, when I return from my weekly grocery shopping here in the hot season. Storing the icecream would spoil my indolence during the rest of the week.

BTW: It must be possible to find some kid’s gemstones and let them settle in the nail polish before it dries up fully.

Klaus

[sloan]

I just had a thought similar to that, Klaus. I'll be going to the local hobby shop shortly to see if I can find some tiny five-point starts to stick on the mouthpiece.

Make sure you get the heavyweight stars...

[imperialbari]

These would be black and acting with so much gravity, that all vacuuming would become obsolete in the surrounding counties.

Schlepp, you might not need perfect 5-stars to get the intended effect.

Klaus

[imperialbari]

Great!

What will you do next? Design ice desserts?

And now we touch on the true disadvantage of plastic versus metal:

You cannot fill a Kelly with powder, stick a fuse in the backbore, and light it for home fireworks.

And then I use a Schilke tuba mouthpiece as the stand for the flag in my front window.

Klaus

[sloan]

Well boys and girls, I got my fingernail polish and some little plastic stars and the end result can be seen below. The only alteration I made to my original plan was to scrap the idea of using blue metalflake nail polish and use a solid blue instead. The glitter blue was just too hard to workwith and required too many coats on my test piece to get the desired results.

Silly boy - everyone knows that a bare-plastic mouthpiece sounds better than one with a layer of paint damping the sound.

My advice: strip it!

[tubatooter1940]

That is so purty, Schlep.
My "gold" Kelly looks like corroded brass. You got me thinkin' neon purple.
Plastic mouthpieces rob you of some of the the high frequencies you become accustomed to playing metal mouthpieces. I don't expect coating the outside of a plastic mouthpiece would make it sound noticeably worse.
Waddaya think about purple to adorn my silver/goldwash bellforward with lots-o-dents 1940 King?
toots

[sloan]

You cannot fill a Kelly with powder, stick a fuse in the backbore, and light it for home fireworks.

Dang! There goes my second plan for the mouthpiece.

Sloan, I put a coat of clear fingernail polish over the stars to help secure them to the mouthpiece. Does the clear coat qualify this as a lacquer finish?

Alas, yes. Perhaps if you send it off for cryogenic processing you can restore the tone quality of the original naked plastic.

[imperialbari]

Schlepp, if nothing else, then you by now display star quality at the visual level! And out of recent experience: Please no syringe-applied stuff to become the dancer you once thought you were.

Klaus

[imperialbari]

This board is kind of international, so there are several ways of celebrating national holidays.

Which kind of dance is seen in the streets on May 3rd?

Klaus

[imperialbari]

Pole dancing!

[imperialbari]

But I ain't Polish.

Oh, I thought that was why you could nail it on a Kelly.

BTW. those stars sit nicely lined up. No help from the nimble fingers of the missus?

Klaus

[rocksanddirt]

nice look!

[fenne1ca]

Beautiful job, man! I think I'll do something similar to my "Harvest Gold" Kellyberg. The color is so dark, everyone thinks it's brown. I think I'll stripe it with dark red, and show off my school colors (maroon and gold)!

[Rob]

Very nice, and it will be the only one out there. Now I think you just need to get a fiberglass sousaphone and match it to your mouthpiece....!


Rob "Might consider playing a fiberglass sousa if it were as nicely painted as this mouthpiece"