Screw on Bells

[PigLord]

Hello everyone,

I have seen talk of screw on bells on this site, and the option intrigues me. I am just wondering what euphonium manufacturers have this option. I am also wondering if anyone has any experience with them and how it affects sound. Thank all of you for your time.

[DaveBj]

Are you talking about bells that screw on in the way that valve caps screw on, or bells that slip on and then are held in place by setscrews?

[PigLord]

Thank you for your response. My interest in removable bells is really to have the option to change the metal that the bell is made of, so either would work for me unless their was a big difference in playing a instrument with a screw on or setscrew bell. Does anyone know know the playing diferences between the two? Thak you for your time.

[DaveBj]

Originally posted by: PigLord Thank you for your response. My interest in removable bells is really to have the option to change the metal that the bell is made of, so either would work for me unless their was a big difference in playing a instrument with a screw on or setscrew bell. Does anyone know know the playing diferences between the two? Thak you for your time.

Ah, I see. I don't think I can help you. The only experience I've had is with the latter of the options I mentioned, and those were on cheap bell-front horns that had removable bells so they'd fit in a smaller case. I don't think that's what you had in mind.

That said, and I'm by no means an expert, but I'm not sure having that ring of reinforced metal that would be necessary for a screw-on bell would do good things to the tone.

[PigLord]

That is fine. I have not seen any brands that offer it for this intention, so I was just seeing if anybody had any knowledge of them from a theoretical standpoint (you are probably right that the reinforced metal would dampen the sound).

[RickF]

I have seen one type of euphonium (Meinl Weston) with what looks like a 'screw bell', but believe it must be something different. It would make no sense to me to have 5 or 6" of bell removed to pack it in a case... unlike screw bells on F-horns. I don't believe it's in production, but possibly a prototype.

See this discussion thread:
Euphonium w/ tone ring?

[PigLord]

Thank you for the response. Yeah, I do not believe that the euphonium they are playing is a screw bell, but probably a tone ring (unless the tone ring is there because it is a screw bell further down). They might be trying to make a horn that could switch bells (because of metal types), or it could help with projection as you stated or they could have found that their euphonium just plays better with a screw bell and tone ring.

[davewerden]

I am quite skeptical of the value of a screw-on bell for euphonium for any kind of tonal modifications. Switching to a different-sounding bell would be cool, but the screw mechanism itself would have its affect on tone. Let's say I wanted the option of a brighter bell on my Adams, perhaps one like the Sterling Excalibur had (rimless). The very act of fitting my horn with a screw-off bell consisting of the current bell-top would change the tone, so I would not have the option of keeping the sound I now like.

If a horn were designed from the start for this mechanism, maybe it could be made to work. But you would sell very few, I suspect, to people wanting to change tone via the bell-top. However, IF someone could make the top piece so it fits into the body someway that would enable a flat-sided case, I might get a lot more interested! It's darned hard to pack a bell-flair case along with "normal" luggage in the trunk of a car. Unfortunately, I don't think the few inches of smaller flar attached to the bell-top would nestle inside the 4th-valve tubing loop, which about the only possible area on my horn.

If only I had gone for that engineering degree!

[PigLord]

Thank you for the response. It would work a lot better if somebody creating a euphonium from scratch with this in mind. With creating a flat side case, the top of the bell could fit in the 4th valve or main tuning slide loop, but a place that looks more promising would be inbetween the top loop and the valves (with of course a lot of padding on any option and probably a deeper case). However, the original spot I was thinking for a bell to come off is where the bell is generally soldered to the bottom branch. This would not allow for a smaller sized case, but would allow for the whole bell construction and material to be completley changed. The problems this would have, however, would be that 7-10 different items are generally soldered onto the bell that could no longer be soldered. These would either have to mean less grounding of the sound or these would have to be attached to other places. Overall, this would be something that would have to be worked on for a while to get right. Sorry for the long post.

[PigLord]

Oh, another idea would be for the bell to be a two piece bell and have it unscrew where it is soldered to the bottom branch and where the second piece attaches. This would allow for the case to be flat sided and allow for the whole bell to be changed with the material, the flair, and to a one piece bell (which could only be done if you had a flair case on hand, but I digress; it just sounds like a cool idea ).