Posted by Mark Heter on September 15, 2003 at 11:14:39:
In Reply to: "B. Bell" F tuba... posted by takin' a break on September 13, 2003 at 19:02:00:
Bell's F tuba was based upon a King E-flat horn, configured with the valves in front. We had a King three-valve e-flat of this type at NYU (no, I don't know what happened to it, I was there in 1968). I tried it with a King 25 mouthpiece (an e-flat version of the H.N. White 26) because it required a shallower cup to not play so damned flat. As an e-flat, the horn was rent with intonation problems, compounded by the absence of a fourth valve. I never saw another one. The other King e-flats I know of were the recording basses (cut down BBs) and a top action three and four valve model with long stroke valves, pout into production pre-WWI. I think their best e-flat was the four-valve sousaphone, actually. I have been told that White shut the factory down (at least part of it) to cut down an e-flat and make Bell this F tuba - the only one they ever made. My guess is the valve section is the usual .687 bore valve section, either made by King or possibly subcontracted out to Reynolds (they did stuff like that in those days) soldered onto an artfully cut down e-flat tuba. Probably came up with it through trial and error, and probably never made another one, since they couldn't find enough of a market for them to justify a production run.
Don B. had played this F, and liked it. Most of Bell's students seem to have had Alexander Fs, since they were probably the best of the lot AT THAT TIME, and affordable (this was back in the days of cheap German cars, too).