Posted by Dan Schultz on August 09, 2001 at 19:21:31:
In Reply to: Helicon I.D. - modification posted by Steven on August 09, 2001 at 15:27:34:
You would be better off locating a old sousaphone body with a good valve section and fashioning a bell to fit it. You would probably have to do a custom neck to fix any intonation problems but I think it would be easier than repairing a valve section. My helicon is made from an old York Eb sousa body and a bell of an old upright. It was really sharp even after fabricating a neck so I added an old slide assembly between the neck and the valve body so the neck and leadpipe are now tunable. Not real pretty but it plays very well.