I'm talking about the ones made over the past thirty or more years that are thin sheet metal and lightweight, yet continued to feature substantial bracing (but before they went to those weird braces towards the very end)...
I dealt with one today (brown and all beat up) that seemed to fearure endless loose braces and even a loose body joint, yet it wasn't TORN up... It was actually sort of difficult to find all the loose braces, because they were all still completely contacting the surfaces from which they were loose.
This one even had a one inch crack in the body elbow (which I brazed) from being smashed in and straightened back out so very many times.
All of the bell screws were gone, and they had whacked all three of the bell screw flanges against door jams. I had to resolder two of them to the bell receiver and re-tap the threads on all three, but I didn't have to replace any of them.
As with most King sousaphones, it just seemed as though it refused to allow itself to be pulled apart.
