Posted by Barry Guerrero on November 12, 2002 at 11:24:05:
In Reply to: Survey: Cut your B & H tuba? posted by Bill on November 11, 2002 at 11:00:56:
The Phil Parker cut is off of the two back side branches, but only on the sides where the tubing is perfectly straight. It's just a matter of unsoldering the lower backside branch, removing the farrells (however that's spelled), cutting the two straight ends equal-distantly, and then refitting everything. It's not rocket science - I noticed the ability to cut straight tubing there before "Fletch" told me about the Phil Parker cut. As I recall, I believe that I had about 2 inches cut off of each end. However, I know longer have the horn, so I can't measure it out. What you might want to do is start out by cutting an inch off of each end, have the horn refitted (but don't put the braces back on, or tack the lower branch back on to the horn), and toot on it to see if it's been cut enough, or if more needs to come off of there. If more needs to come off, then just pull everything apart again, and have another inch cut off of each end.
Because you'll be cutting off of the branches, I believe that you need to cut a bit more than you would, if were cutting at the main tuning slide. I don't why that is, but it seems to be true. Hope this helps.
Barry Guerrero