Hey all,

I'll be coming into possession of a Holton 156 (straight). I'm thinking about putting a valve on it, but I'd like to keep the straight goosneck as well for when I don't need the valve. Any suggestions? I tried looking for slide tenons for Holtons and came up with nothing.

Thanks!

I hear good things about Texas Horn Trader. See if they have one.

[quote="bassbone1993"]Hey all,

I'll be coming into possession of a Holton 156 (straight). I'm thinking about putting a valve on it, but I'd like to keep the straight goosneck as well for when I don't need the valve. Any suggestions? I tried looking for slide tenons for Holtons and came up with nothing.

Thanks![/quote]

You can buy an entire Holton tr159 for MUCH less than you can make that modification. The 159 is a 156 with a valve. That work + parts will cost upward of ~~$1500?? And someone (me) has a 159 for sale for $650? I mean, it's a cool thing to do, but its so much simpler to just get another horn. I've been tempted to do things like this in the past, but now I have an 8h and an 88h. Some people wind up making modular horns into regular 2 piece horns just because they play better with soldered joints.

Yeah if what you're after is the option to do straight or F attachment, having a complete bell section is really nice. It'll be impossible to do a new valve for anywhere near that price.

Being that I converted my TR256 into a convertible model many years ago, I can share that it is much more involved than just finding the slide tenon. You must also consider the brace parts because the Holton braces are a different diameter than most of the brace parts/kits used for creating custom F-attachment sections. I chose to keep the original braces on the straight section and use Bach brace parts on the F-attachment. I believe I had to draw in the Holton brace tubing to make the whole project work. However, it might have been the other way around. Presently, that horn is buried behind about 45 other horns in my trombone closet, so it would take a little effort to pull it out and check.

For the tenons, I just replaced the male and female sides with Bach parts. At that point in time, I just had multiple Bach tenon parts in the shop. I am rather sure that the Bach 50 male tenon was an almost perfect fit over the .559 bore lower slide tube.

The horn plays beautifully, both straight and with F attachment. I reserve it for use when I have two halves of programs that are very different. For example, I last used it on a holiday program in late 2022. The first half of the program had a lot of low register trigger material and the second was all higher register “pops” type music. I switched to the straight horn during intermission and my hand/arm was grateful afterwards!