... but now (even though not needed until the second week of August) we are pushing really hard to hustle out the same city's middle school instruments, so we can deliver everything in one trip - instead of wasting additional hours of gasoline, tire rubber, and driving later.
I'm doing their 3/4 tubas first. I'm on the second one. It's one of those j-Taiwan copies of a Yamaha 105. (I'm not a fan of this j-make.)
All of those goofy wing screws (that hold the tuba together) were loose, of course, and one was missing, but it was not too terribly torn up and it's actually pretty shiny, though the bell rim was cracked in two places - even though the bell creases were only very minor.
One of the pistons, of course, had a broken off stem in it and was missing the button and the top cap as well as guide and washer etc.
I was pretty sure I had all that stuff.
After I extracted the broken off stem threads from the piston, I started rounding up a stem and a guide and a washer...
I wasn't too worried about locating a finger button, but I grabbed a couple of top valve caps and - after a couple of tries - realized that they were the very similar looking small YAMAHA top valve caps and NOT the j-Taiwan ones. I fished through all sorts of stuff and didn't find any of the correct smaller top caps for the j-brand. (Understand that I'm talking about the caps that screw onto the casings and NOT the finger buttons.)
As I often do, I started brainstorming in regards to what we have in the entire barn. I remembered that there was a crappy old DEG Taiwan top action valve section from another smaller tuba, and started getting excited. I found the valve section, it only had one cap and I unscrewed it and took it into my work room. ... too large .
There was also an old Brazil/Weril similar valve section... Those valve caps were too large as well.
With the other two was a third similar much better made 3/4 top action valve section from one of those old Blessing USA copies of King 1140 tubas. Those valve sections were made by the same European company which is now owned by Adams, and makes their pistons these days. I "knew" that those caps wouldn't fit but I grabbed that valve section and just took it in to my workshop because it had all three caps. They fit the j-Taiwan tuba perfectly.!!!
so I replaced the two on the instrument with the three from the old Blessing USA European-made valve section so they would match, and screwed the tuba's two valve caps onto that spare Blessing valve section, making a note that the caps were Taiwanese and - if I ever needed that valve section - I could get a third one to match from Nashville. Finally, I was short one finger button and all I had was a similar but wider sousaphone finger button (for that same j-Taiwan brand). With the original valve caps, it would have clanked, but - with the German valve caps - it fit and it blended right in because it was the same style but only a bit wider.
Just like the US military, we who repair school instruments leave no dead or wounded behind...
... and he11 no, I didn't want to call Nashville, order a stupid valve cap and finger button on Monday, and probably not get them until the following Monday or later. I just wanted to finish the d@mned instrument and put it back in the case, which I did after I got the dents out of it as well and freed the horribly lime stuck slides.
... Oh yeah, I also had to braze those two stupid cracks in the rim, but whatever on that.
I managed to get that tuba done in less than two hours, bought no parts (though I used stuff that I had saved back from other junk instruments and thrown in that make's parts drawer).
I started on it a little bit after 9:00 p.m. and I noticed that it was 10:59 p.m. when I walked back into the house. I quoted $250 on that repair. Again, I'm very fast at this... I guess it ended up paying about like a decent gig, except I didn't have to drive to the gig and home again, nor get cleaned up. Realize though, that we have to pick this stuff up, load it, bring it back here, unload it, type up a fancy quote, wait for a purchase order, reload it, take it back there, unload it, and then wait 45 days to be paid after submitting an invoice...so all that extra hassle makes this repair worth every bit of $250, even if I wasn't lightning fast.
Tomorrow, it's on to middle school tuba #3 of 3, and then a bunch of baritones, euphoniums, and French horns...bleech
