Posted by js on November 11, 2001 at 16:08:16:
In Reply to: Re: soprano bell-front tuba posted by Doug Elliott on November 11, 2001 at 15:56:30:
More than half of the Couesnons that I've lucked into over the years (again, all play remarkably well, once this oft-found problem is eliminated) have had fairly loose-fitting pistons - and not from wear.
That's just the nature of those instruments. Couesnon, in the 60's/70's was very much an "econo" line, where much of the machine work was excellent and some was not.
Finally, most all of the Couesnon flugels, in order to install a #3 slide trigger (for a decent d, c#, etc.), need to have the #3 slide tubes completely realigned, as Couesnon had no intention of lining those tubes up nicely enough for that purpose.
I used the word "always" because the ones that I've found in the past few years have ONLY been ones with sloppy pistons (as I'm quite sure that all "good" ones are in hands like yours and "not for sale").