186 to repair in one week

[bloke]

One of our people here on this tubaforum site dropped it off while on vacation, and plans to pass back through here to pick it back up upon return from their vacation.

It's a typical 1970s old one that was probably owned by a school.
There were some funny things about it. After looking at it for a few minutes, I finally figured out what happened:

Decades ago, someone did a restoration. In the midst of straightening everything out, they replaced the upper bow cap, the bottom bow cap, they didn't bother to replace the missing keel, they replaced the bell, and they replaced the mouthpipe.

It was done early enough so as the replacement bell was 16-1/2 inches, but features the larger print MIRAFONE engraving and the larger triangle, but the serial number was scratched in underneath and off center. I'm sure it was the serial number that had been on the original bell.

After going back into school use, the thing got sort of beat up again over the subsequent years, as one would expect. I don't believe any linkage rebuilding or rotor bearing rebuilding was ever done.
The replacement caps on the outer bows were cut very long, and their ends are only within about 1/4 inch away from the bow ferrules.

My thinking is that it was either surplussed by the school system or traded in for something else...(??)

This week, I'm supposed to straighten it all out, do the stuff that I do to the valves, and they will pick it back up on their way home to the Great White North (where they report that there are still two feet of snow on the ground).

They report having bought this from a well-known New York City area store that put it in minimum playing condition, and sold it for a price in accordance with the condition of it.

I have that crushed up Conn/Olds tuba to repair and fit replacement pistons for the missing ones, but maybe I can get both of these done within this allotted time. ... I'm also trying to kill spring weeds to avoid mowing some acres of land, but maybe I can get it all done. ...(??)

[tadawson]

I'll officially "out" myself as the owner of this project 186.

I bought this after not playing for 34 years, and not wanting to sink a lot of $$$ in a horn until I knew how well I was going to do, but (even in this condition) I have grown fond of this horn. (And none of the issues found were made known to me when purchased, and I always wanted a 186 of this vintage.)

My job requires me back by the 23rd, and the drive from Blokeplace to home is about 950 miles . . .

AllI can say is that the project didn't seem that big until Bloke got hands on it, and the list just kept growing . . . . Seemed doable when we first talked about it back in January or so.

Hopefully this can be done. Naturally, also, my summer band decided to start a month early this year as well . . . If all goes well, I'll get to sight read one rehearsal of material that the group has never played (and still not identified to me, so no idea if I know it or not), and perform it May 1 "no guts, no glory".

I never have named this horn, but after discovering the history, may dub it "Phoenix" since it seems to keep getting reborn.

[bloke]

I'm giving up on this bottom bow cap, which I was trying to save.

It was obvious that this thing was sent off to a so-called "overhaul shop" decades ago. This is obvious because of these things:
- they replaced the bottom and top bow caps, rather than repairing them
- they replaced the bell, rather than repairing it
- they replaced the mouth pipe tube, rather than repairing it
- they used epoxy lacquer - which only overhaul shops do, because that stuff doesn't keep very long and it needs to be used up

Whoever installed at least the bottom cap wasn't particularly skilled. I was unable to iron both layers because there was a ridiculous amount of solder between the two layers (I would estimate a fourth pound of solder between the layers. ) Mrs bloke would heat an area and I would iron it to get the solder squeezed out of it so that I could work on it...but alas - just about the time I got the cap looking pretty good, it started getting work hardened and started cracking..
... so I'm going to install a new cap on the bottom bow.

If they hadn't kept putting and putting and putting and putting and putting solder in between the bow and the cap , I could have saved this cap.

[tadawson]

Ugh! Sorry . . .

(Probably explains why my local guy with limited tooling gave up on that though . . . )

[bloke]

Ugh! Sorry . . .

(Probably explains why my local guy with limited tooling gave up on that though . . . )

I think that explains why your tuba feels sort of heavy.

Thinking about all the big blobs of solder that I squished out of there during the ironing process, I'm thinking it might have been more like a third of a pound or a half a pound.

[tadawson]

And you deprived me from naming it "lard ass" ("lead ass"? "Iron butt"?) . . . Oh the angst . . . What will I ever do?

[prodigal]

bloke: You got this! You and elephant are the best at reincarnating 186s.

[arpthark]

Can NS be annealed to prevent cracks like that...? I am thinking no?

[prodigal]

Nickel plated brass (rifle casings at least) is very difficult to anneal.

[Rick Denney]

Caps can be annealed, but they lose their shape and it’s a lot of work to reshape them. BTDT. Replacing them is cheaper, I’m sure. But I think bloke was hoping to straighten the bow and the cap together to save the customer money—hence trying to squeeze out the melted solder.

Rick “no stranger to solder-filled voids” Denney

[gocsick]

NS can be annealed but it is much more difficult for several reasons.

1) Temperature: Yellow brass annealing temp is 800-900F.. NS is going to be 1100-1300F.

2) Higher yield strength in the annealed state.. it doesn't get nearly as soft as brass

3) faster work hardening rate.. It doesn't take a lot of cold work to undo all the annealing

4) NS has a higher elastic modulus or stiffness... it springs back to a much larger extent than brass..

All that compounded means it would take a skilled craftsman to avoid cracking if you had to do significant work to nickel silver

[bloke]

NS can be annealed but it is much more difficult for several reasons.

1) Temperature: Yellow brass annealing temp is 800-900F.. NS is going to be 1100-1300F.

2) Higher yield strength in the annealed state.. it doesn't get nearly as soft as brass

3) faster work hardening rate.. It doesn't take a lot of cold work to undo so the annealing

4) NS has a higher elastic modulus or stiffness... it springs back to a much larger extent than brass..

All that compounded means it would take a skilled craftsman to avoid cracking off you had to do significant work to nickel silver

Just as Rick says, I was trying to save the customer some money, but just about the time that I got enough of the solder out so is the two layers could be ironed together, I used up all the borrowed time I had as far as the elasticity of the nickel brass. I knew I was getting close. I could have stopped just before this mess happened, and it looked "sort of okay enough", but I prefer that stuff that I work on look at least as good as the bottom bow with cap (repaired without removing the cap) that I handed off to Wade, and -:because of the ridiculous soldering done by some overhaul shop, when they installed this replacement cap - this one wasn't quite there, as far as appearance is concerned.
I could have used Superman's X-ray vision and seen in advance all of this ridiculous pile of solder (again, it may well have been a half pound ) that was in there.

Sometimes, it's important to show people when stuff doesn't quite work out, unlike some of these repair shops on Facebook wereby they're bragging about how well they can install a spit cork on a trumpet or neck cork on a saxophone.

(When I post here, it's for my friends' amusement. I'll gladly accept your work, but - that said - I've got plenty of work. I don't need to show off my spit cork-replacing prowess, nor how well I can iron out routine bell creases from a Chinese euphonium... and - based on those videos on Facebook - not particularly well. )

[bloke]

Again, there were some unexpected issues with this bottom bow, but I think I've gotten to the stopping point here, because I have to move on to other issues with this instrument.
- Neither I nor the customer were expecting for me to have to take it off the instrument.
- Neither I nor the customer were expecting for me to be required replace the cap.
- The customer wasn't aware that there should be a keel on this instrument.
@York-aholic donated a 60-year-old keel (one of the really tall ones - made of brass) which I paid forward after cutting it down to the modern preferred height (low).
The bow legs are parallel. It's a camera angle and distance issue.

[prodigal]

Nice job on the keel reduction. (I look at mine and think I need to wear a cup when I play, lest I become a soprano.)

[York-aholic]

@York-aholic donated a 60-year-old keel

Which was once owned by @Tubajug

[Tubajug]

@York-aholic donated a 60-year-old keel

Which was once owned by @Tubajug

It's good to see those parts getting used! Better than sitting in my basement!

[bloke]

Nice job on the keel reduction. (I look at mine and think I need to wear a cup when I play, lest I become a soprano.)

unsolder, chop down with one of the crappy little dollar-store hack saws (holding it in the vice by the part to be discarded) as those blades are narrow enough to "cope", grind it down to shape on a grinder, file it down nice, sand it, and buff it. (I skipped a couple of those steps, and just went from the grinder to Mr. Monstro, the buffing-machine-of-death.

[tadawson]

My thanks and appreciation to all in the "chain of custody" for the keel! I'll give it a good home!

[prodigal]

Nice job on the keel reduction. (I look at mine and think I need to wear a cup when I play, lest I become a soprano.)

unsolder, chop down with one of the crappy little dollar-store hack saws (holding it in the vice by the part to be discarded) as those blades are narrow enough to "cope", grind it down to shape on a grinder, file it down nice, sand it, and buff it. (I skipped a couple of those steps, and just went from the grinder to Mr. Monstro, the buffing-machine-of-death.

It's on my to do list, just way below fencing in 4 acres (probably by hand). I gotta watch it with some power hand tools. I'm pretty decent with a chainsaw, but I get into the trouble with the dremel at times. My favorite 'smith said that I had the inletting skills of an angry beaver.

We've got to make Mirafone reincarnation awards for you and elephant.

[bloke]

Dremel takes too long...
Use one of those crappy little saws (fresh blade) and a regular full-size bench-mounted grinder. There's plenty to hold onto to reduce the likelihood of self-harm (though it will get pretty warm).

I have three pastures fence that probably only add up to a scant 3 acres or so. Two of them are just goat wire, and the one close to the house is pretty fancy (four wood planks plus goat wire on the back and some barbed wire at the top and bottom) because it's near the house.
Mrs bloke and I did that one (which goes around a 350 ft curve), as well as adding on a 50 x15 addition for the pasture animals onto the side of our pole barn shop (in which we have climate-controlled workrooms).

Building fences is not for the faint of heart, and neither is adding on to pole barns. (I'm sort of proud of those jobs.)