King 4B mouthpiece receiver

[haydens]

Hi all! I have a late '70s 4BF which is new to me, and it has the old-style King mouthpiece receiver that I remember reading about which is very slightly too big for modern large shank mouthpieces. I don't have pictures since the horn is currently in with Ron Partch for some TLC, but a Bach 5GS that I had lying around went in maybe half a centimetre past the usual insertion mark. I'm concerned that my Warburton, which usually fits quite low in normal receivers, will just sink right in - what have people done to fix this in the past? Are there options other than the somewhat expensive conversion to removable leadpipes?

[BGuttman]

A wrap or two of Teflon tape (plumbing supply) does wonders.

[harrisonreed]

You can also remove the leadpipe and use press-fit pipes with the correct taper. Then you can have any old pipe you want as long as it is the right bore size.

[haydens]

A wrap or two of Teflon tape (plumbing supply) does wonders.

Would the Teflon tape change the instrument's sound/resonance at all?

[Matt K]

Doug Elliott sells a shank that is specifically designed for that leadpipe. As others mentioned, you can also use teflon; some players actually have their mouthpieces turned down so they can use teflon to get the gap just right on any given week so I wouldn't worry about performance nearly as much as the hassle that you have to go through to do that.

Another possible option is to get a sleeve that fits your mouthpiece. The whole process isn't particularly cheap either though.