I have a Bach Mt. Vernon 3C mouthpiece that I got in the early 50s. I just started to play again and I noticed that the Bach mouthpiece does not seat as far into the lead pipe of my Reynolds trumpet as my Conn 4 mouthpiece. After measuring the Bach and several other mouthpieces, I discovered that the Bach mouthpiece is 0.395 inches in diameter at the end of the shank. The spec from the Bach web site is 0.382 inches which I suspect is a minimum, because the other mouthpieces I measured were from 0.385 to 0.388. The Bach mouthpiece sat 1.00 inche into the receiver while the others sat 1.16+/- inches in. The distance to the shoulder in the receiver is 1.26 inches. Were all the early Bach mouthpieces this much oversize? Is it intended that the taper diameter be machined down to adjust the gap between the end of the shank and the shoulder in the receiver?

Any inputs will be appreciated.

George

The older Conns had their own dimension sets for their horns and their mouthpieces were designed to fit it. They are a bit off on other horns and same with other mouthpieces and their old horns.

Go visit the Conn Loyalist website and they have pictures to show you what is going on.

This is not being used on a Conn trumpet, but on a Reynolds Professional. However, the Conn mouthpiece shank is very close to the Shilke, Yahama, and a new Bach 5C that I measured. Only the Bach Mt. Vernon 3C is oversize.

Granted but they show the Conn receiver and both a standard MP and a Conn of than vintage and how different they are.

I checked your reference, and that is exactly the issue that I am observing. Did Bach make mouthpieces for an oversize receiver? I can't find any information to that effect.
Also, what is the difference between a Bach Mt. Vernon 3C, New York 3C, and unannotated 3C? Very confusing.

Thanks for your assistance.

George

Hi George,

I've found the differences between Bach Mt Vernon and Bach New York mouthpieces to be minimal. The "new" Bach mouthpieces appear to me to have less bite and rounder rim contours. You can check out different Bach, and several other mouthpiece brands, at the Kanstul Mouthpiece Comparator.

Originally Posted by gchunter

I have a Bach Mt. Vernon 3C mouthpiece that I got in the early 50s. I just started to play again and I noticed that the Bach mouthpiece does not seat as far into the lead pipe of my Reynolds trumpet as my Conn 4 mouthpiece. After measuring the Bach and several other mouthpieces, I discovered that the Bach mouthpiece is 0.395 inches in diameter at the end of the shank. The spec from the Bach web site is 0.382 inches which I suspect is a minimum, because the other mouthpieces I measured were from 0.385 to 0.388. The Bach mouthpiece sat 1.00 inche into the receiver while the others sat 1.16+/- inches in. The distance to the shoulder in the receiver is 1.26 inches. Were all the early Bach mouthpieces this much oversize? Is it intended that the taper diameter be machined down to adjust the gap between the end of the shank and the shoulder in the receiver?

Any inputs will be appreciated.

George

That was also common with the older Conn mouthpieces as described at
The Conn Loyalist

My vintage Reynolds 7A trumpet mouthpiece measures .395" at the small end of the shank.
And it is only 3.25" long rather than today's standard of 3.5" long.

My vintage Conn E-Z Tone trumpet mouthpiece measures .393" at the small end of the shank.

That is why Christine Derksen, host of Conn Loyalist, says in the article I linked to above that some vintage trumpets play better with vintage mouthpieces.
The cornets back then tended to use 2-1/2" short-shank rather than 2-3/4" long-shank mouthpieces (Conn and Holton and King and many other companies).
And the trumpets of various manufacturers back then tended to have slightly larger shank diameters, similar to the way that pre-1956 Olds cornets had slightly larger shank diameters.

When was your Reynolds trumpet made?
What is the measurement of the trumpet's mouthpiece receiver?
If you want to find a vintage Reynolds mouthpiece to fit it, send me a private message here at Trumpet Master telling me the Bach size equivalent that you are looking for and I will send you Web links to such Reynolds mouthpieces without other people seeing and buying them out from under you.
Such mouthpieces are fairly rare, but they usually sell fairly cheap because there is not much demand for them.

I forgot to mention that the vintage trumpet mouthpieces of many manufacturers had larger standard throats than is normally seen today, the old ones were often a #24 to a #20, which is a lot larger than the #27 that is seen in today's Bach mouthpieces.
But the larger throat sure gives a nice tone.

(In mouthpiece throats, the bigger the number means the smaller the throat opening, with #16 usually being the hugest opening and #30 usually being the tiniest opening, and #26 or #27 being typical of today's mouthpieces.
But I have read that the old Bach mouthpieces were all #27 throat because Bach assumed that every player would open the throat to whatever size the player wanted, easier than stocking mouthpieces with various throat sizes.)

Hello again,

My Reynolds trumpet was made in 1952, Serial #31798.
The receiver diameter is 0.440 inches.
The mouthpiece that came with the horn was a Conn 4.
The Bach MV 3C throat accepts a #27 drill.

It sounds like your vintage Reynolds and Conn mouthpieces are identical in geometry to my Bach MV, so Bach must have made mouthpieces to fit these horns, and I have one of them. Since it is 3.438 inches long, I may have the taper machined to 0.382 inches at the small end to better fit my trumpet.

Thanks,

George

George,

Do not get too concerned about absolute measurements of mouthpiece parameters, the most important measurement and only measured indirectly is the gap between the end of mouthpiece shank and the start of the leadpipe.

There are several thoughts on this, Schilke had zero gap, most I have seen have been between 1/16 and 3/16".

I have recently been experimenting with a set of 5 interchangeable shanks for the Wedge mouthpiece giving gaps from zero to 5/16". My initial impressions are that the smaller the gap the more secure the slotting, the wider gap makes pulling notes easier, I need to do more work on it.

Keep in mind that 1/1000" removed from the diameter of the shank will give an extra 20/1000" insertion into the receiver.

Regards, Stuart.

Stuart,

This gap was my initial concern. The shoulder on the mouthpiece receiver is 1.261" deep. With my MV Bach 3C mouthpiece the gap is 0.261". With the Conn 4 mouthpiece it is 0.062". On two other mouthpieces that I checked the gap was 0.114 (Schilke), and 0.154 (Bach). I may get a Morse taper reamer and hand ream the mp receiver to provide a more optimized fit for the mouthpiece that I end up using. I could then trim or shim a mourhpiece that sat too deep. Any thoughts on this solution would be appreciated.

Regards,

George