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Jonathan Hodgetts at Wessex tells me that Wessex is about to start selling its own version of the classic Besson / Yamaha "water reservoir" for tubas and euphoniums at very reasonable prices (the genuine Besson one will set you back about $180 !!; the Yamaha one for euphs is about $40 but can be difficult to find). So I will probably end up with one of the Wessex gutters for my Wessex 981 clone.
In the interim, however, I decided to make one myself that is better than the flexible one I posted earlier on this forum and is similar to one Dave Werden has described (using vinyl tubing) elsewhere on this site. So here it is. One improvement I would make to this is to add an Amado water key so the gutter doesn't have to be removed and re-attached in order to be drained. But for now, this works fine.
Materials:
Tools:
It really helps to have a drill press and a machine vise for this, but with care it could be done without either or both of these. Then you need a 7/16" drill bit (or about that size; a 1/2" would do as well) and a 19/64" drill bit. It would be better to have a 19/64" router bit or mill bit, but I didn't have one of these; and since I was working in plastic I knew I could get away with the drill bit as mill cutter
.
The first picture below shows the tube section after (1) a 19/64" hole was drilled for each bottom valve cap nipple, and (2) a 7/16" long slot was cut off the side of each large hole. The slot is about 3/8" long. The machine vise helps a lot with this since you can just drop the chuck down and move the vise table to cut the little slots. The distance between the large holes is 35mm. Sorry to mix dimension systems here, but I'm pretty sure the instrument was manufactured according to metric measurements. So for this one critical measurement, I stuck with metric. Otherwise, all my bits are in the English system.
The second picture shows the finished product after the end plugs have been glued into the tube. This fits my Wessex EEb horn perfectly. It currently almost fits my Mack Brass euphonium well, but the 19/64" holes are a little too small for that. The nipples on the bottom caps of that horn seem to have a little larger outer diameter.
As I say, I'm inclined to add an Amado water key near one end in order to get the water out while playing without having to remove/replace the gutter. I used JB Kwik Weld to glue the end caps in, and would use that for the water key as well. On a metal gutter, I'd solder the water key on.
Total cost on this is only a few dollars (even if you have to buy 10' of the PVC tube). It won't mar the instrument.
In the interim, however, I decided to make one myself that is better than the flexible one I posted earlier on this forum and is similar to one Dave Werden has described (using vinyl tubing) elsewhere on this site. So here it is. One improvement I would make to this is to add an Amado water key so the gutter doesn't have to be removed and re-attached in order to be drained. But for now, this works fine.
Materials:
- About 4.5" of 3/4" Silverline PVC pipe. I had some of this sitting around, but it came from Lowes. This is thin wall stuff (Silverline 1120?) rather than the heavier Schedule 40.
- Two Hillman 7/8" Nylon Hole Plugs -- from the Lowes specialty hardware section.
Tools:
It really helps to have a drill press and a machine vise for this, but with care it could be done without either or both of these. Then you need a 7/16" drill bit (or about that size; a 1/2" would do as well) and a 19/64" drill bit. It would be better to have a 19/64" router bit or mill bit, but I didn't have one of these; and since I was working in plastic I knew I could get away with the drill bit as mill cutter
.The first picture below shows the tube section after (1) a 19/64" hole was drilled for each bottom valve cap nipple, and (2) a 7/16" long slot was cut off the side of each large hole. The slot is about 3/8" long. The machine vise helps a lot with this since you can just drop the chuck down and move the vise table to cut the little slots. The distance between the large holes is 35mm. Sorry to mix dimension systems here, but I'm pretty sure the instrument was manufactured according to metric measurements. So for this one critical measurement, I stuck with metric. Otherwise, all my bits are in the English system.
The second picture shows the finished product after the end plugs have been glued into the tube. This fits my Wessex EEb horn perfectly. It currently almost fits my Mack Brass euphonium well, but the 19/64" holes are a little too small for that. The nipples on the bottom caps of that horn seem to have a little larger outer diameter.
As I say, I'm inclined to add an Amado water key near one end in order to get the water out while playing without having to remove/replace the gutter. I used JB Kwik Weld to glue the end caps in, and would use that for the water key as well. On a metal gutter, I'd solder the water key on.
Total cost on this is only a few dollars (even if you have to buy 10' of the PVC tube). It won't mar the instrument.
But that makes me wonder a bit more: brass does not seem to be a particularly good material for fashioning any spring-like part. Steel, yes. Bronze, yes. But brass? That I find surprising. I'd expect fatigue problems that spring steel or bronze wouldn't exhibit. But if they work, they work.
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