Custom BBb Bass French Horn

I like bass versions of instruments, hence why I built a bass trumpet.... Way back in grade school, I started on French Horn and played it for a few years until the middle of 8th grade, when I switched over to tuba. Sometime ago, I ran across Roger Bobo's Bass Horn in CC and then saw Tim Sullivan's CC version using a sousaphone body.

Both of these are interesting instruments - Roger's is close to a french horn in terms of it's design, while Tim's is like the second or third movie of Honey, I Shrunk the Kids! (Honey, I Blew Up the Kids!) and is a mammoth/jumbo french horn.

The one thing I don't like about Roger's is that there are several loops after the valve section, where as on a French Horn, there's only one loops and then the bell.

On Tim's I'm not a fan of the short leadpipe - it works for him and that's what matters most.

For me though, I thought about using a Buescher Eb helicon, but this was just a bit too big and would require another wrap of tubing like Roger's bass horn.

So I came across an ad for a mini sousaphone - one of those Barcone Italian-made mini sousaphones that have a tiny bore and are very much a 'joke' instrument. This was about the perfect size for the body and the bell was about the right size, so I bought it. It showed up and was better than I hoped, well for the most part.

Naturally, a French Horn has to have rotary valves, I took a tenor tuba or the world's largest euphonium and removed the valve section. It's a four valve rotary block with about a ~.684" bore, I should be able to make the King standard parts work instead of trying to find more of this tubing or drawing the tubing to several sizes. The best part is that the valve section nearly fits right where the valves would be on a French Horn! I still need to remove all the tubing and flip the block over and figure out how to make the linkage work...

Anyway, The body was dismantled and the original valve section removed, then buffed and set aside while I worked on the bell. Removing the collar and the bell tenon, leaves just the bell flare. I need to find either a baritone bell to use for the throat or make a new section to fit between the bell flare and the body joint. I've measured the placement and I need about 7 inches between the body and the bell, but an 8 inch section of a bell to fit the body... I may have a baritone bell to use for this. Then I will have to cut the middle and splice in the removable collar and tenon, so that the bell can fit into a more convenient case.

The bell is 19-inches and the body is about 21 or 22 inches wide. Hand-stopping should still work fine on this.