Tuba manufacturing question


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Posted by Chuck(G) on July 17, 2001 at 19:50:37:

I recently came across a sousaphone body, the large branches of which were soft-soldered together. That is, the large branches were formed from two stamped halves, soft-soldered into an ingenious grooved brass moulding. Not until the tubing got too small to make this practical did it appear that standard bending techniques were used.

So why aren't standard concert tuba bows made like this? Seems that it would be cheaper; and if you needed to take out a large dent, you'd just unsolder the clamshell and roll the dent out. No expensive tuba dent ball sets and cussing trying to get that little dent on the top inside bend of the bottom bow.

If this sounds like it resembles the "just cut the top bow in half and stick in a ferrule" thread of a couple of weeks ago, I apologize. Inquiring minds want to know.


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