Posted by Joe S. on February 03, 2000 at 00:26:48:
In Reply to: Looking for old 4-piston valve section posted by Santos on February 02, 2000 at 21:26:28:
my recommendation to you: Pick-up one of those four valve Eb sousas off of eBay, and then send the valve section, once unsoldered from the sousa, off to Anderson Silver Plating for a rebuild, as it will most likely need it. This is still a tremendous savings over a NEW Eb 4-piston valveset with slides, even though the 4th valve tubing on the sousa valve section will probably need some minor re-routing.
If your tuba is currently TOP action, it is easy enough to turn the whole thing around backwards to accomodate the newly-added FRONT action sousa valveset. I did one of these when still not very experienced in repairs (only about one or two years after I began doing repairs), and it wasn't tough. The King 4-valve section from the King Eb sousa works nicely on a Conn or Pan American top action Eb.
I don't know who to recommend to do the job, if you want to hire it done, but I DID offer you a source idea for the parts, eh?