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I like really well made nickel plated pistons, but trumpet X was never identified, and they're awful lot of Y's, Z's, and AA's that - maybe - are built better than X.

I remember when Doc Severinsen quit playing Getzen moved over to some Conn trumpet (1000B?) for a little while. That probably pissed them off pretty good. (Are those valves in the picture Conn valves from-way-back?)

One thing I don't like about monel pistons is that (I'm not a metallurgist of any sort; only an observer) they tend to pick up brass oxide from the brass valve casing surface. That's possibly (likely?) what that green stuff is that you see on the valve pictures, rather than wear...
... I went through several old trumpets last night really late (as I had a chance to hand them off to the band director today at a church job, instead of driving all the way to their school) that belong to a middle school. Some feature monel pistons and I had to clean green brass oxide off the surfaces of each of those. Seemingly, it's only preventable via generally oiling such valves every time such an instrument is played (as I preach)... The kids playing school trumpets are mostly not going to oil the valves.
Stainless steel doesn't seem to pick up brass oxide from the casings as monel pistons do. Not knowing anything about metallurgy or chemistry, I sort of wonder if the spit water access some sort of catalyst which encourages brass oxide on the surfaces of the casings to sort of plate over to the monel. (??)

I noticed that the next article was about Thayer.
' anyone ever done a suction test on those?
(nuff said)
(When a bearing surface is also an air ceiling surface and it's around the size of a silver dollar, it's going to be pretty difficult to dial in those tolerances very close while still allowing such a valve to rotate (and I personally never found those tolerances to be very close at all). That said, trombone inside/outside playing slide tolerances are also not close.

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- Suction tests are going to depend on how well an individual piston and it's casing are built, moreso than the (alternate viable) materials from which they are built.

- This article - being followed up by one on Thayer valves - is ironic.

- Really well made nickel plated pistons really do have a nice slick and luxurious feel. Of course all piston porting necessarily quite imperfect, but to make really top level nickel-plated pistons (heavily plated), the (pre-plated) porting needs to be roughly 4/1000th oversized or so in order to end up (regardless of necessary imperfections) the proper final size.

SHAMELESS ADVERTISING:
I've always been pretty impressed at the fit of JP pistons and rotors to their casings. I wish JP would tighten up the fit of the stop arms of their rotor stems, but the rotors to the casings themselves are always excellent, (superior) as with pistons to casings, and that's even with a trumpet that I sell for $3XX, and this goes for the first and third slide alignment on that very low priced trumpet as well.
I had a customer trash their compensating fourth valve and casing. The replacement parts arrived from JP. I couldn't get the piston to go into the casing without perfectly lining it up (as well as removing a little bit of dust, believe it or not) and then it went in and smoothly/easily moved up and down. To make sure I didn't lose any parts, I assembled the piston with the new plastic guide and stem and all that stuff. The guide didn't need any trimming at all. It was perfect without using a razor blade or a file or anything and the piston moved just as freely. ...incredibly fine tolerances. as good as any.

"every Getzen valve section is built from the same quality materials, using the same skilled techniques, and tested to the same high standards."

My CB-50 has entered the chat and would like a word.

There's a reason I put MAW pistons in mine. And at the suggestion of the person who did my valve work, we nickel-plated those pistons (which are stainless steel) and they are tremendous now. The originals ... were pretty bad. It is plausible that whatever happened was prior-owner-based and not due to craftsmanship, but, seems unlikely.

The Getzen 50 tubas that I've seen/played/repaired sported nickel plated pistons.

People seem to get annoyed with me when I point out that they're remarkably similar to King pistons - as well as being absolutely interchangeable with King. I'm supposed to believe that those pistons (absolutely exactly like King) came from Europe. That's just too hard for me to believe. I admit this weakness (when evidence seems overwhelming to the contrary) - not believing what I'm told, just because someone tells it to me.

I'm pretty sure that the Getzen pistons ad was a TRUMPET pistons ad. (I'm reasonably convinced that Getzen was just about as interested in selling those tubas as Holton was in selling model 345 tubas.)

I stuck some of the King-fitting MAW Meinlschmidt pistons into this tuba. I've already been over this, here... The set was a barter for a whole bunch of dent removal on a really beat-up 25J.





The attraction is that the MAW King pistons (unlike the larger bore size that most people purchase) tend to be just a bit tight, which required that I lap them in, and the action of lapping them into the 30-year-old King casings defined a slight step up in fit/tolerance. Fitting them required particular care because - with the C shape cut out of them - they're pretty flexible. Having fit them in nicely, they feel as nice as any valves (and they are stainless steel) particularly when I play this instrument daily for several days in a row and oil them...(duh)