Courtois B-1½C marching mellophone (large-shank flugelhorn) mouthpiece 3D rendering

Description

This was made with VennCAD software from Vennture Mouthpieces, using scans of 2010s a Courtois B-1½C flugelhorn mouthpiece, OEM-made by Lausmann in Germany.

The nomenclature with prefix B refers to the French term for flugelhorn, "bugle à pistons".  

This custom design set had a twofold objective: create a mellophone mouthpiece with a wider inner diameter and alto horn-esque cup for a very dark tone, while making these Courtois designs usable with oversize Large Morse taper flugelhorn receivers.  

The Courtois designs have very short Small Morse shanks, with 0.3719"~0.3721" shank opening outer diameters - this shank type doesn't work with the rather large Amati-Kraslice or Conn 1F Vintage One receiver.  

These custom designs have a 0.3840" / 9.754mm shank opening outer diameter, slightly smaller than VennCAD's default standard for trumpet & mellophone mouthpieces.  This modified size works with Large Morse receivers rather well.

By using the original backbore with thicker shank, the shank opening is a bit less fragile.

Warning!  However, these are not going to be as sturdy as Kelly molded Lexan or DEG Astro-Cup nylon-top mouthpieces.

The Materialise prints ordered are shown fitted with Bach Mercedes (Olds tooling) mellophone, and Amati-Kraslice B-226/AFH-201 flugelhorn (oversize Large Morse taper receiver).  They can also be used with trumpets (especially pocket trumpets) for a darker "flumpet" sound, and they're great matches for trumpet-shank bugles as well.

The B-1¼C has a slightly darker (woolier) tone on various horns compared to the B-1½C, but both sound very nice - the sound is very dark due to the extremely deep funnel-cups and large throats.  The B-1½C has slightly better intonation.  

The intonation on a red brass "Parrot" trumpet (imitating a late 1950s Conn 10B Artist or 38B Connstellation, but made in Tianjin, China ca. 1980s) was surprisingly even with the B-1½C as well, and the sound was extraordinarily mellow!  

No dimensions have been adjusted or modified for printing or cutting. This model is intended for experimentation, with the price intended to defray R&D costs.  The B-1½C mouthpiece has overall length 58.01 mm / 2.284", and [greatest] outer diameter of 27.31 mm / 1.075" - note that the shank opening is generally thin and fragile with resin prints.