Last night I met a dude from Brazil who lives in the USA and builds tubas to sell back in his home country.
He takes Conn 20J bodies and bottom bows, and strips the valvesets and bells. He then mates them with Jupiter marching contra bells and pastes on Chinese 4 piston York-style .750” valvesets. He showed me some of his work. Very well done. He worked in construction in Boston but moved to Florida (warmer!) and now in retirement travels around the country in retirement, buying parts. He was on a big run from Boston to Pittsburgh to Orlando when I met up with him in Connecticut. I sold him a 24J body (kept the bell) and a few mouthpieces.
The frankentuba scene is pretty crazy in Brazil and we don’t hear about it too much from English-speaking channels. Some of those guys build some really interesting stuff.
Interesting chat with a Brazilian frankentuba builder
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arpthark
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jose the tuba player
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arpthark
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Re: Interesting chat with a Brazilian frankentuba builder
He just showed them to me on his phone. He said in a few weeks he is traveling to China to buy a big load of piston valve sets.
Re: Interesting chat with a Brazilian frankentuba builder
On FB I see various interesting horns from Brazil, for many of which I do not recognize the maker. They seem to take great pride in the appearance of their horns and take great care to keep them in good shape.