Posted by Chuck on October 12, 2000 at 15:50:07:
In Reply to: Holton,York cut jobs posted by Phil on October 12, 2000 at 11:16:45:
I can tell you first-hand that that not all cutting works out. Sometime ago, I posted a note about a big 6/4 Cazzani-Rampone CC that I had picked up. Sucker has a 22" bell and a 0.900" bore. As a CC, it was very mediocre with some severe intonation problems in the low register. But traces of old braces led me to believe that it was originally a BBb.
So I decided to do something about it and "un-cut" the beast.
I converted it back to a BBb--and what a job! Allied doesn't stock tubing that big (the tech guy nearly fell off his stool when I asked). So I had to draw tubing of the required size from smaller stock and manufacture the tapered sections and ferrules. Took me over a month. New matching braces, on the other hand, took only an evening. The result is a very good BBb--the only real intonational difficulty is that the Bb on the top of the staff plays very flat, but can be fingered as 4 to be in tune.
Now, every time I see a fairly good CC that has been cut from a BBb, I can only speculate on what a wonderful BBb that horn must've been.