186 to repair in one week

[Mary Ann]

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.)

I already AM a soprano (well, I was when younger) and the keel on my 183 threatens to make me more of one, especially since I need to snug the tuba into me to get the leadpipe angle as needed. I'm not sure why keels are there, or those ball things either. Seems someone in the past had a diabolical idea. (If you get the joke, more power to you!)

[bloke]

A friend around the corner (only four miles away or so, which out in the country is "around the corner") has a serious machine shop.
(This person actually has government people coming in to have him make things out of specified materials and - of course - the specified sizes and shapes but WITHOUT telling him what they are for.)

He's always busy, but somehow he's always willing to take on my little jobs that I'd rather be done on a higher quality lathe than my own.

He's buzzing 3/1000ths off the underside of the #1 bearing, and 2/1000ths off the undersides of the three others.

The first valve gets used the most, so it wears the most.

He's only going to buzz off about a half millimeter of width, because that ridge that stops the bearing in the Miraphone casing is so narrow, and that's all that's needed. This will eliminate annoying vertical clicking noises. (Of course, I had to do the measuring to determine how much wear. It would probably piss him off to make him figure it out.)

I told him to not clean off the burr, because it's so important that these friction-fit into the casings, and I'd be afraid that him cleaning off the burr would take some diameter off of these. I'm going to scrape the burr off by hand with a three-cornered scraper.

OH NO !!!
I just gave away valuable trade secrets...and/or gave others ammunition to criticize my methods.

[prodigal]

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.)

It's always a prayer with the post hole digger that we don't hit one of the GIANT granite slabs that seem to grow in our pastures. I like to lug around calf hutches for the goats if we aren't raising calves, like now, but those porta-huts are HEAVY.

[bloke]

I went ahead and fixed my lathe, sharpened the cutter, and did them myself. I had to get it done sometime.

[bloke]

I hit 2, 3, and 4 bearings (previous post) on the nose...
... no clicking nor lapping required.
(neither too loose nor too tight and they all spin nicely without me doing anything extra.)
I didn't take enough off of number one, so I went back and took off some more. I if two three and four are just right, now number one is "just righted".
It's important that these fit without any vertical movement, because the nickel threaded valve caps on these rotors do NOT feature those cheater screws in the middle that can stop clicking even IF the rotor bearings are worn.

Since that stuff took way less time than I had budgeted for (as opposed to the nightmarish bottom bow), I went ahead and did these parts (you don't need to se "before" pictures, because everyone knows what these always look like "before") and I squeezed in getting them done before dinnertime. (I'm sure that you understand that this stuff was all dented up everywhere you could imagine, but tip your hat for the fact that I got the dents from under the water key saddle without un-soldering the water key saddle. Please notice that no files nor sandpaper nor buffing wheels touched these parts...same shiny/scratchy lacquer.)



I got the fourth circuit dents out about the best I could manage without un-soldering a thousand things, the large upper bow looks good now, there was an interior dent on the small upper bow that was tricky but I got it out, remaining are some bell dents, two or three mouth pipe dents, straightening out bent linkage and tightening it up, and soldering the bottom bowl and these parts in this picture back onto the instrument.

There's probably some other stuff that I forgot about...(??)

(The carriage brackets are both bent over a little bit per typical, but those usually just tap right back in place without the solder joints busting.)

Tonight I think I had better practice the tuba...
I've got more than two hours of hard ass music to play in two concerts coming up very soon.

When we left for just a few minutes, a school dropped off seven instruments. They looked to be a combination of marching baritones and marching euphoniums. Of course they need them back right away for tryouts, of course they don't have any money left to pay for the repairs, and of course I won't be paid for these repairs that they need right away until after the middle of August.

[tadawson]

The only thing I can think of that we discussed that I didn't see mentioned was that tiny ding in the receiver that fights with solidly seating the mouthpiece.

And glad to see that not everything is a disaster area to work on!

[bloke]

The only thing I can think of that we discussed that I didn't see mentioned was that tiny ding in the receiver that fights with solidly seating the mouthpiece.

And glad to see that not everything is a disaster area to work on!

Coincidentally, the reamer that I need to use to address your receiver had to be removed from my lathe to take down those bearings.

[Mary Ann]

Useless data from memory banks: The year between commmunity college and NMSU, when I had to get some money to go back to school, I worked in a factory with machine shop type equipment. One of the things I had to do was make a cam for the centerless grinder within 1/10,000" accuracy. I did. Was probably partly luck, but whatever.

[bloke]

I'd like to test these rotors in this linkage, but I had Mrs bloke put the center screws in her pocket yesterday, and she ran off to the store.

I've got a lot of heavy stuff (well... if not "heavy", long, loud, and a lot of fancy tonguing stuff) to play in two separate upcoming concerts - one of which is in a week. I'll run through that music until she gets back.
I was just sent an add-on piece for a John Williams pops (next Saturday)..."Raiders of the Lost Ark". I've got to make a combination cimbasso and contrabass tuba part out of the 4th trombone part and tuba part - much as with Williams' "Summon the Champions" piece.

[Rick Denney]

Joe, how did you chuck up and indicate in the rotor plates in your lathe? It’s been too long since I visited and while I looked at your lathe I don’t remember details. Shaving off less than a thou is easier on brass than on steel, but it’s still difficult and alignment would need to be perfect to avoid waviness.

Rick “who’d probably want to make a steel holder” Denney

[bloke]

Joe, how did you chuck up and indicate in the rotor plates in your lathe? It’s been too long since I visited and while I looked at your lathe I don’t remember details. Shaving off less than a thou is easier on brass than on steel, but it’s still difficult and alignment would need to be perfect to avoid waviness.

Rick “who’d probably want to make a steel holder” Denney

The outer side of the spindle bearing - of course - is the more extended side (which is serendipitous).
It's a bastard size... c. .350" (no collet, and I'm just not willing to pay someone to make me one.)

I tightened it down ever-so-gently in the four-jaw chuck (pressing the large surface flush against the (thankfully, flat/apparently dead-on 90° chuck face itself.
I SHOULD have stuck the magnetic base of the dial indicator on it (to insure that it was mounted straight) but - well - these things end up subtly bent - over the many decades - from being pounded in-and-out and (to my eye) each one spun quite true, so I preceded. After all, I'm accustomed to staring at wobbly trombone slide tubes (mounted on another lathe). I used very light pressure when cutting and drew out very slowly.

Even IF the four-jaw chuck had swedged (swaged?) the cylinder in just a tiny bit...well Hell...those are usually (being vertically worn from use) worn into a subtle cone as well, so that probably would do more good than harm. Even HAD that caused the cylindrical hole to drag (I've sort of learned from experience), I've got LAVA soap suds that I can create with my hands and water, and mix with mineral oil.

OK...to avoid ruining the friction fit, I avoiding turning off the burr. I scraped the burr off with a three-cornered "solder scraper".

' hope this helps.

I'm NOT any sort of "machinist". I'm a REPAIR-GUY. I DO NOT know what the hell I'm doing...I make sh!t up as I go along.
I've got people fooled. They pay me to do stuff, because they don't know any better.
LOCAL people bring me their junk/school horns to bring back from the dead (typically, $2K - $7K piles at a time...and I'm currently repairing some instruments for some broke/spent-out programs that won't be able to submit invoices until July 1st, but that's OK, I suppose). Mostly, better quality individually-owned instruments (other than the local top professionals who know to come to me) come in from hither and yon.
After all, the local person is "just ol' bloke". The guy 1000 miles away from someone is "the exotic and mysterious bloke". (This 186, in fact, is a 1000-miler.) The same goes for my mouthpieces. Everyone around here plays PT and Conn 120 mpcs. (Correction: Some area schools are beginning to buy mine at a quantity discount price - particularly since I'm introducing some of them in one-pc. silver-plated brass versions...It's mostly the tuba-playing band directors.)

[tadawson]

950 miles, actually, but close enough for either horseshoes or hand grenades.

Ironically, with this trip, cost me about 100 more miles that we would have gone anyhow. Milwaukee/Chicago (likely next closest - we make Williston look outright "urban" in terms of proximity to anything "large") would have been 400 to 500 each way, and two back and forths . . . so 100 extra to you, or 1600 to 2000 total to the "other" places.

That, and I've seen your work, we have talked, and you have a good reputation here . . . anyone else is a crapshoot . . .

(From what I have seen, methinks you underestimate your talents . . . )

[bloke]

This BELL is one of the thickest tuba bells (any make) I've ever encountered...
It's 16-1/2" diameter, but a replacement for this instrument at some time in the past.
I wonder if the later "S" bells "(which featured a kranz) were/are CRAZY thick...(??)
This is a HEAVY tuba (with-or-without the 1/4 lb. of solder that formerly was between the bottom bow and the discarded bow cap, which I replaced).

I ended WHACKING on some of the bell stack dents with blows (from the inside, with a huge white-acorn-shaped piece of steel - blows that would have devastated a typical 16-1/2" bell...)
After three huge whacks or so: "ok...pretty good...could use some more... "

Tomorrow, is "shine up burned lacquer and missing lacquer areas and shoot some clear on those spots and areas" day. It should be skinned over in ten minutes and dry enough to slide in the back in a half-hour to an hour.
There are more scratches in the lacquer than there previously were (in spots), but - after all - the prescribed method is not "polish, lacquer, THEN remove dents".

The valves are quiet. I hope they stay that way for a while.

I can't guarantee that your mouthpiece won't rock in the receiver...None of these mouthpieces (including "stock/not-bloke-mouthpieces") were incompatible, but I reamed out the flared receiver portion of the mouthpipe tube anyway.

[tadawson]

Perhaps we have revealed evidence that the Germans, ever practical as they can be, came up with a "Young Scholars" parts line, made from 70 percent "normal" brass alloyed with 30 percent old Panzer armor.

Two birds, one stone!

(Oh, and the mouthpiece "wobble" was pretty minor to begin with, but clearly noticeable if the mouthpiece was just gently seated (never had that before on any horn, and not a fan or really ramming them in), so I suspect the quick reaming will do the trick . . . )

[prodigal]

"Perhaps we have revealed evidence that the Germans, ever practical as the can be, came up with a "Young Scholars" parts line, made from 70 percent "normal" brass alloyed with 30 percent old Panzer armor. "

That's hilarious! (But it would be practical!)

[prodigal]

Panzertuben?

[bloke]

completed, loaded, paid, headed home

... on to the next stuff

By the grace of God, we have a lot to do for a lot of people.

[bloke]

I'm going to TRY to RUSH through this one

https://tubaforum.net/viewtopic.php?t=13603

(as my John Williams pops - next weekend - is only about 15 miles from the school that owns, this...and
- I have two ALREADY REPAIRED instruments to drop off with them (the repairs for which they've cordially ALREADY PAID).
- The band director ALSO wants to hand me his personal 42B (Bach trombone) to straighten out. I told him I'd quote him all sorts of prices - all the way up to "polish and lacquer"...but (with apologies) no "band director discount"...I just can't be discounting my labor charges.

If there's time, there's also a (only $100 job) Bach Strad trumpet "go over" to do (as that customer ALSO lives along the way to the John Williams gig today)...actually: the Bach trumpet customer lives in New Albany, MS (where Mr. Giddings now resides). With the pricier gas, I'm trying to save myself and others gas bucks (though the TIME saved is considerably more valuable than the gas saved).

[tadawson]

Panzertuben?

The smartass in me concluded that if I played opera, I could, at times, refer to it as "Panzer Faust"

(It's the bomb!)