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Thread: replacement 1st valve slide - marching baritone

  1. #1

    replacement 1st valve slide - marching baritone

    You may be sensing a trend in my posts . The marching horn I've been rehabbing (Vincent Bach baritone) had not been played in 20 years. I managed to get the instrument apart and the slides unstuck and gave it a deep cleaning tonight. The first slide required penetrating oil + heat/cold to get the slide out. The first valve slide's tubing is the same diameter on each leg. One leg slides in easily to both holes, the other does not slide easily into either hole. Looking closely, I see a small ding in the leg that is tight.

    - Are replacement slides sold and where would i get one (online or only from an instrument tech)? I see new horns with a very similar design.
    - Would it be cheaper to repair (by a pro)?

    I'm fixing this horn up as a stop gap for a few months. I'm trying to build my chops back up after a very long hiatus playing; I want to do this before demoing new/used concert euphoniums. Said another way, this horn is beaten up and I don't want to spend a ton of $$$ on it . I'm able to shove the slide into any position but need a shoelace to pull it back out (this is after cleaning and lubrication).

  2. #2
    I would think a repair for a dented slide leg would be easy and inexpensive. I'd try that route first, assuming you can get to a decent repair shop.
    Dave Werden (ASCAP)
    Euphonium Soloist, U.S. Coast Guard Band, retired
    Adams Artist (Adams E3)
    Alliance Mouthpiece (DC3)
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  3. #3
    Join Date
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    Quote Originally Posted by davewerden View Post
    I would think a repair for a dented slide leg would be easy and inexpensive. I'd try that route first, assuming you can get to a decent repair shop.
    I'm all for doing my own fix-up on instruments, and I do a lot of that, but in this case ...

    Yes, it would be easier and probably less expensive to take it to a repair shop.

    In addition, if you're starting to go down a kind of cascading rabbit hole of "things that need to be fixed or tweaked" with this horn which you regard as a "stop gap", taking it to a professional repair tech will potentially save you a lot of time, money, and heartache. For example, what do you do when, after you put time and effort into fixing the ding, you then discover that one of the slide legs (probably the one that got dinged) is out of parallel with the other, or there's a bent brace screwing things up? Etc. These kinds of things are generally easy for a repair tech to do, and once it's "up on the rack", the additional cost of such minor repairs is ... uh ... minor.

    The tech I go to, for example, charges $60/hour for such work, but actually charges for whatever fraction of an hour he's put into it. He did an entire slide alignment, slide bumper replacement, and some bell dent fixes on my old Olds trombone for $60. Especially if you tell the tech that what you care about is "playability" and you don't care about achieving perfection or cosmetic excellence, having him put the horn in shape will probably cost you less than trying to get any parts and the shipping involved.
    Gary Merrill
    Wessex EEb Bass tuba (DW 3XL or 2XL)
    Mack Brass Compensating Euph (DE N106, Euph J, J9 euph)
    Amati Oval Euph (DE 104, Euph J, J6 euph)
    1924 Buescher 3-valve Eb tuba (with std US receiver), Kelly 25
    Schiller American Heritage 7B clone bass trombone (DE LB K/K10/112/14 Lexan, Brass Ark MV50R)
    1947 Olds "Standard" trombone (Olds #3)

  4. #4
    Good points, thanks everyone.

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