Martin Committee Fibreglass Sousa

[sticky_valve]

Searched the web and this forum with no results to find out more information on Martin Committee Fibreglass Sousaphones.

I play tested one over the weekend and it seemed to play fine, however it sounded a little dull. Being the first time I've played a sousa let alone a fibreglass instrument I'm not exactly sure if is inherent with the horn I played or if there is something to look for. It seemed to have good compression in the valves, it has also had a replacement neck adapted to fit it also.

Any info on this particular model and your experience with it would be helpful.

It had "Committee" on the bell Collar and the serial number was on the 2nd valve and bell collar. The 70#### number places it around 1964. It also had a an upper tunig slide on 1st valve which looked to be original. From what I can read it was around the RMC period, I thought I'd try my Reynolds tuba bell but it was a fraction too large to fit in the collar. I thought the brass bell might help lift the sound a little.

Thanks in advance.

[Dan Schultz]

....
If you get another chance to play it, try raping everything from the mouthpiece down the first valve and also the small side of the tuning slide all the way to the fiberglass connection.....

Ooh. That's gonna hurt!

[sticky_valve]

Thanks for the responses.

I will get a chance to play test the horn again at some point. I will try and find any leaks away from the valves particularly where the brass connects to the fibreglass body. The owner is currently overseas so it may be sometime, I'll let you know how it goes.

I was also waiting for the owner to have his repariman go about fitting a neck to a second much older brass Martin sousa he owns. I was hoping to test the two side by side, though I'd imagine them to be very different.

The valves looked good on the older horn, still had a lot of plating on them. All the slides were free, however most did have patches on them.

I can't imagine that there will be no leaks given the 80year + age!! It was impossible to test without a correctly fitting neck (the fibregalss has had a conn received adapted to it so couldn't fit the neck in all the way).

Thanks Bloke for the tip on the unique valve stem situation with Martins. I noticed the older horn had miss matching finger buttons, so alignment / previous repairs could be another issue.

I also tried looking up "Red Lehr", a few movies on youtube, though none using a fibreglass sousa!

Cheers.