Converting a GG bugle into a concert tuba

[emcallaway]

Sometimes I wake up with crazy ideas, and this mornings I've decided that it would be quite fun to play on a tuba pitched in GG below the BBb tuba. One (relatively) simple way to get there would be to convert one of the the old 3 or 4 valve contrabass bugles into a concert tuba shape; the advantage of this approach being that the intonation of the resulting instrument should be (approximately) the same as the contra that was reconfigured.

I've taken a look at Dan's marching tuba re-configuration and I'm curious if anyone has done a similar conversion with a GG bugle, but keeping the instrument pitched in GG.

Have I absolutely gone off the deep end (pun intended) here folks? Is it a project worth pursuing further for a tubist who isn't afraid of playing with unfamiliar fingerings?

[PMeuph]

I've taken a look at Dan's marching tuba re-configuration and I'm curious if anyone has done a similar conversion with a GG bugle, but keeping the instrument pitched in GG.

I'm pretty sure Dan left that instrument in GG. That's how I read this passage:

I 'fiddled' with the idea of converting a GG contra a while back but ended up selling it to a 'geezer' drum corps. Had I kept the horn, I would have cut it to a BBb and changed it to a concert tuba.

There's also no mention of slide/bow cutting in his blurb...

[NCSUSousa]

I'm pretty sure Dan left that instrument in GG. That's how I read this passage:

I 'fiddled' with the idea of converting a GG contra a while back but ended up selling it to a 'geezer' drum corps. Had I kept the horn, I would have cut it to a BBb and changed it to a concert tuba.

There's also no mention of slide/bow cutting in his blurb...

I'm sure Dan can speak for himself about any changes he might have made to the GG Contra that he sold to a geezer corp, but the Dynasty M875 (http://www.musiciansfriend.com/brass-in ... g-bbb-tuba) that he modified and posted is originally a BBb instrument. No cutting for pitch required.

[Dan Schultz]

......I'm pretty sure Dan left that instrument in GG. That's how I read this passage:

..... There's also no mention of slide/bow cutting in his blurb...

I was speaking of an earlier one I had when I said the horn was left in GG. I sold that one to a 'Geezer' corps.

The one pictured on my web page was indeed cut to BBb. The only REAL cuts to the horn was to shorten the tuning circuits. The reconfiguration took care of removing enough of the open bugle to get the pitch down to BBb.

[Dan Schultz]

One of those 4-valve Dynasty-Kurath things recently sold on eBay.

Rather than making do with what is there, I was thinking about trying to make it into a more factory-appearance Willson 3100.

1/ It went for too much money on eBay to justify all the work.
2/ Even the "few" parts that would be needed for a more "legitimate" conversion (bought from Kurath) would have cost a fortune.
3/ It would still only be a 4-valve version of a Willson 3100.
4/ There would have been old/new solder joints all over the place.
5/ There's no way I could have sold it for enough to even recover costs, much less pay for my labor and offer me any "profit".

All of what Joe says is valid. The only reason why I did the conversion is because the contra was sitting idle in a high school locker... they needed a concert tuba... and paying me to convert the old contra was quite a bit less money than buying a new American four-valved concert tuba.

[aqualung]

ALL the GG contras were made with the major components of BBb tubas. I mean the Whaley-Royce, the Smith, the Olds, the King K-90, several DEG/Dynasty configurations from Willson, and the various-sized Kanstuls. Cylindrical tubing was added to drop the pitch a m3 and extend the valve circuits.

So if you are making a BBb lap tuba out of a GG contra, you are just reconstructing the original source instrument.