Periphery

SOLD! Thanks, DCP!

Meinl-Weston 32 CC Tuba with Five Rotary Valves This Meinl-Weston 32 CC has a 1941 York Monster Eb bell on it. I really like the sound I get from it. As a 4/4 CC it works well in the orchestra and as a freelance tuba. A previous owner "reordered" the valves so that 5 is now at the bottom of the stack. The stack had been the normal 51234 but is now 12345. The 5th valve is a half step. Some of the other slide loops were completely rebuilt to accommodate their new location within the body wrap after 5th was relocated. They were all adjusted so that they fit and work properly, with 1 and 3 having been very well aligned and the rotor casings vented. Since 1 and 3 work like trombone sides for effortless movement, slide stops were added to prevent them from falling out, but a previous owner removed the stop rods. However, the posts are still there, making the addition of the rods a fairly inexpensive piece of cake for a good tech if the new owner decides that s/he wants them. The 1st valve linkage is a long, L-shaped brass rod with a small guide channel on the backside that does a very good job. The 5th linkage is one long, straight rod, connected to another long, straight rod. It also works very well. This tuba comes with a very decent black, cordura gig bag. No mouthpiece or hard case will be included in the sale. Tuba with black cordura gig bag: $2,500 __________________________________________________ LINKS TO MORE PHOTOS MW-32 - Rear MW-32 - Valve Section MW-32 - Bell Side MW-32 - 1941 York Bell Engraving MW-32 - Gig Bag 1 MW-32 - Gig Bag 2 __________________________________________________ FINE PRINT (please read carefully) 1. I do not ship tubas. You will have to drive halfway to meet me. We will have to discuss this, so after an email we can exchange phone numbers and talk about setting up a road trip. 2. At this price there will be no "trial period" for this tuba. A potential buyer will need a tuner and about thirty minutes to know whether they feel it is worth the price to them. I can bring another tuba and we can play some duets for you to see how well this tuba plays. 3. No payments. A Bank Check/Cashier's Check for the full amount is acceptable. 4. I do not haggle. The price is the price. 5. For the sake of clarity I can post additional photos if needed. Contact me by private email please. Thanks for your time! Wade Rackley

Tubas have been sold. THANKS!

Miraphone is SOLD! Ad edited to reflect this. MW/York bell is probably going to be kept and overhauled. Conn 2J CC four banger is still up for grabs and is a blast to play (no pun intended). It was not made by Conn but was stenciled for them by Olds, makers of the Ultratone contras. This is built like a tank and plays great!

Thank you for the private responses. The Miraphone 184 is now on hold, purchase pending.

page two bump-a-roo

SOLD!

How much for just one of the three-valve-converted Olds Ultratones?

BUMP! Help a brother out and get him some cash SOON, folks!!!

Hiya, Cam! Good luck. This is where I found mine and my K-90 as well. I have another (very excellent) K-90 being held for me until I can get my finances for it in order. This is a great source. Wade PS - Stop by my blog or email me again soon. And now it's time for the great big BUMP! BUMP!

She is in the guard. That year a bunch of the guard played soprano at the end of the show.

You missed the opening bracket in your first IMG tag. Fixed!

I would concur with that evaluation of the Getzen's playing. And I just happen to have one for sale for $150 plus shipping. (groan … ) It has a usable case that needs some hardware and the horn has one large tubing joint that needs to be re-soldered. It is in very good condition overall and does play. It has the original gooseneck. Slides and valves work well. Horn is in Jackson, MS right now but will be moving (with all of us and all of our mountains of crap) in January to Yazoo City, MS. Again, these were NOT great playing horns when new. This one is a great example of this very mediocre bugle. But it does have a hard case, all of its parts do work, AND it does actually play (if you can call the pig-like grunts of a Getzen "Baby Contra" playing. Minor work will have it dent and leak free. If your friend knows how these horns play and STILL wants one then look no farther … PM me if he actually is foolishly interested one of these best-forgotten bugles. I would be happy to unload mine! ^0^

This is one of my favorite photos so far, from this entire thread. It shows so vividly that drum corps is made up of individual kids when you disassemble the unit into its constituent parts. These are two ordinary kids who just loved drum corps (and happened to be members of an outstanding organization, too). This photo puts a very human, non-performing face on the performers. While members of the vaunted Blue Devils, they could also easily be kids from next door or your college roommates. And the great color really makes the 1981 – 1983 seasons seem so much less distant in time than the quarter century that has actually passed since we were all young and fit and invincible. Great photograph. I love candid, fully-uniformed, off-the-field shots like this. Thank you.

In Sky Ryders the year before you got there we marched six K-40s and 12 K-50 mellophones. The flugels had simple parts and were where we stuck our weaker upper brass players (sometimes being woodwind players who could get a good sound and range but had so-so technique). The parts were on their own line and were either easy fill-in sustained stuff or supported sop 3 or mello 2. As the summer progressed I was told that this section's book was toughened up as they improved and gained range and technique. Our hornline marched: 24 K-20 sopranos in three parts with split leads 12 K-50 mellophones in two parts 6 K-40 flugelhorns 18 K-70 baritones in three parts 8 K-90 contrabasses We did not own French horns or euphoniums at that time, though photos show that this changed shortly thereafter. Also, we only had 66 horns and not the 68 as shown. I am not sure where the two holes were, but I think that they were a bari 3 and a sop 3 … but I don't really know.

Too late Ed. I will be buying all of them. I am getting the euph, mello, flugel, and a very nice K-90 for daddy!!! PM me, Ed. I can tell you more about this that you might consider very cool. My thanks to Ray!

The K-80 is spoken for! I would like to get the other two as well, but $$$ … well, you know … :) So BUMP for the remaining two!

I sent you an email through eBay regarding the euph. I want it and would like to talk to you about it. I sent you a PM here at DCP with my home email address. I hope to hear from you soon! Thanks! Wade

Chester, This is not a conversion for the K-90. While it can be MADE to fit it will not play all that well (in comparison to the original 2 banger) IMHO, because of the fact that the two sections are of differing bore sizes. This kit was created for converting OLDS ULTRATONE PISTON/ROTOR contras into three piston contras. The King K-90 uses the long-time standard king bore size of .687" whereas the Olds (and this kit) use a .656" bore. The horn play fine but might turn out to be quite stuffy and sharp. The tuning slide might have to be pulled out quite far, meaning that the overtones series will go a bit out of whack. The low range might end up nearly unplayable with any real volume. The tone might also be a bet less nice. Please keep in mind that these things might all happen, might happen individually, or might not happen at all. It really depends on the skill of the repair tech that you took it to. A short, tapered tube will have to be created to link up the two ends. It might have to be a complex bend due to alignment issues. Once this has been accomplished you might have an excellent horn, but please understand that this set of parts was not designed for this horn and you might end up with a horn you no longer love as much. IF IF IF IF IF IF IF *whew!* IF you decide that you like the conversion I am very interested in buying your old K-90 parts from you. I don't have a lot of cash but if you end up interested in selling them to me I would be most obliged if you would send me a PM or an email through this site. Maybe we could work out a deal that would make us both happy. Anyway, best of luck with this conversion. I hope that you end up with a great horn that you can use for many seasons!! Regards, Wade

Man, I wish I could be a part of your group. but I just live too dang far away from my beloved Bay Ridge and Brooklyn. Best of luck to you guys. I read all of your posts whenever I am here. I never marched corps in Brooklyn, but lived on 97th street between 4th and 5th for about three years. I played tuba with the Army Band of New York City that used to be stationed at Fort Hamilton. What a great place to live and work! I hope to move back one day. Again, good luck to your organization!

Hey, Dave! See if you can prevail upon the man to post up some nice photos if he gets a chance. K-90s just photograph so well, you know . . . nice old things . . . B)

You need to drink more coffee! :P

Marty, Nicholas Peyton is a minor god!!!! I love that man's playing! Now, for fun, teach someone else to place the cellophane the way you like it. Have them either put it in or not while in another room. Let them bring you the horn and you play it. Do this about ten times, each time with you not knowing whether the cellophane is present in your leadpipe. Don't attempt to find out. Just play ten or a dozen times without knowing whether it is there. Have your friend record in a book what was done each time and what your initial comments were, plus their own observations (so they need to be another player whom you trust and respect). Results will be very interesting, regardless of the outcome. Make an evening out of it and do this for them as well. Do not share results until all of the playing and writing are completed! I AM a big gimmick guy. I do not really buy into them so much as I like to test them out to see what I think. I have just about eery mouthpiece known to man for my tubas, but I only ever use one on each at work. I make real, lasting changes to my equipment only very occasionally. But I still like to play with all the toys! Only a few times has a "gimmick" or a "sales point" made such an impression on me that I incorporated it into my regular, permanent equipment stable. My recent adoption of such a new idea is with stainless steel mouthpieces. I have not figured out whether it really is the material or something funny that the makers are doing to the throat of the piece. Something HAS been altered from the norm in the throat, but the thing is ALSO made of surgical stainless of a very high grade. So who knows? I now use this piece regularly on one of my F tubas as it corrects some difficult intonation issues on this tuba. But the throat vs. material issue is still a big question. Again, who knows? :)

The Kanstul kit is for the Olds Ultratone, NOT the K-90. It can be made to work, but it requires that a part or two be "created" because the bore of this valve section is smaller than what is on the K-90. Some have reported that these converted horns play VERY sharp when finished. (The conversion kit for the Olds is a .656" bore and the King uses a .687" or .689" set of tubes. This requires that you create a short tube to line up with the body that also flares from .656" to .687" in a slight "S" bend. The addition of a third valve can be done by a really good tech using a valve section from a gutted King sousaphone. You will probably have to locate your own for the tech to use, so get a gutted "white rat" as they are pretty cheap on eBay. However, if you get the valve section from a fiber sousa it will be brass without silver plate. One of these piston casings can be grafted onto your two piston set in a manner that will fit, allow for a decent slide routing and look decent in the end. The best bet is to use the sousa 1st as your new 1st, having a new first slide built that runs down and back. Since the Ab slip slide will no longer be needed the tech has some freedom in rerouting tubes as he sees fit. Just be CERTAIN that he knows that you need to see through the horn to the left or you don't know what you might get in the end! In the end, once all work has been completed, a full overhaul with silver plating is what I would do . . . NOT the chrome allow that is used on the older bugles. It is really hard to do properly and will peel off if not done just about perfectly. If it peels it can cut you in some cases. Note that modern instrument silver plating is only about 4 microns in thickness, so you had better specifically request (more expensive) heavy plating or it will just wear through again. The Kanstuls do not play as near as nicely as the Kings; the tone is not as nice and the projection is not quite as good. Some of the Kanstuls can be pretty stuffy as well. I have played both. If you have the bucks AND the parts AND the access to a stud repair tech, then you ought to fix up your K-90, as this seems to be what you really want. If any of that is missing then you ought to search for a three-valved Kanstul or the 4 banger GG Willson-made Deg Super Mag because you are talking a lot of money here to do everything the way you want and any of these things missing will make it cost more through additional time for the work to be done. (Personally, I hate the earlier, three-valved DEG Super Mags and the four-valved Kanstuls. On the DEGs, the routing of the large tubes is different on the older horns and it does not play as well as the later 4 valver, IMHO. And I have tried to play a four-valved Kanstul and it was not too fun . . . VERY stuffy and front heavy.) BTW - Kings frequently have a really flat second line treble clef G (concert D). I do not recall this with the Willson or the Kanstul. So there is one negative for the King, just to be even-handed, here. :) I plan of doing a 3rd and 4th valve addition to my King at my shop. When it is done I will send it on to Anderson in St. Louis for plating. It will rock anything out there on the field, guaranteed! I just hope that I can hold the bell up as it is already pretty bell heavy . . . :)

Leland! Do you know of anyone who has a complete K-90 two piston set (pistons, casings, slides, caps, buttons) from a dead King or one that has been converted with the Kanstul kit? Or at all? Please say yes!!!!! Ooh-rah, dude! Wade