Question re: King 5b

[Gribnes]

I am long distance/on line looking at a King 5b. The serial #601xxx roughly dates it to 1976-ish.
The seller is a very co-operative music store owner and has measured the Fvalve tubing on the inner section of the pulled out tuning slide at .578.5...I thought that earlier models had .562 but I have not read anything about .578. He is going back to double check.
Any advice is appreciated

[Kingfan]

Interesting. The 5B is a .547 bore 4B with a larger bell. My 1970s era 4B is .547 all the way - slide and F attachment, or at least that is what my cheap caliper shows .562 sounds more like a 6B Duo Gravis. Is the seller measuring the inside of the right part of the F attachment tuning slide, the inner diameter of the part that goes into the outer tubing? Or, am I way off base here?

[Gribnes]

Not off base (bass) at all. The seller went back to remeasure and came up with a solid .562. So 1975-76 some still had the older dimensions. The 6b/Duo Gravis is a dual/dependent set. This single trigger.
Thanks for your response, that is zactly where the hiccup occurred

BTW what an interesting avatar...

[JohnL]

Not off base (bass) at all. The seller went back to remeasure and came up with a solid .562. So 1975-76 some still had the older dimensions. The 6b/Duo Gravis is a dual/dependent set. This single trigger.
Thanks for your response, that is zactly where the hiccup occurred

Do you have an image of the instrument that you can post/link? I'm curious as to whether the f-attachment has a 4BF-style wrap or a 1480-style wrap

[Kingfan]

Not off base (bass) at all. The seller went back to remeasure and came up with a solid .562. So 1975-76 some still had the older dimensions. The 6b/Duo Gravis is a dual/dependent set. This single trigger.
Thanks for your response, that is zactly where the hiccup occurred

BTW what an interesting avatar...

Thanks on the avatar comment . I just measured my 4B using a cheap dial caliper that only is accurate to .00. I measured the INSIDE of the removable part of the tuning slide to be .55, consistent with .547. The OUTSIDE was .56, consistent with your .562. Please make sure he is measuring the inner bore of the removable tuning slide, not the bore of the fixed part attached to the valve that the moveable part slides into.

I do know of a single valve Duo Gravis out there, so anything is possible... That said, I could be wrong about the bore on a 5B, as stated in my signature. My wife will be happy to tell you how often I'm wrong!

[boneagain]

There is still the possibility that the seller did not actually get the inner slide. Yeah, kinda remote, but the FIRST number he came up with was .578, which is fishy. If you assume a .020 or so wall thickness for the slide tubing, and he measured the outer, then that would give .538, which works for some of the older 5B's (but only kinda.)

My qualm about the .562 number is that King came VERY late to the large F tubing with smaller slide bore game. But as noted above, King varied many things many times with the 5B.

[JohnL]

My qualm about the .562 number is that King came VERY late to the large F tubing with smaller slide bore game. But as noted above, King varied many things many times with the 5B.

They didn't exactly come late; they were at the party with the 1480, then they decided to go to George McCracken's party with the 4BF and the Duo-Gravis, where the f-attachments are all the same bore as the slide. Then Chuck Ward came along and took them back to the other party...