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Admittedly, I stayed in the house too long today. It's Saturday and I was sort of pretending like I really get Saturdays off, which I shouldn't have done...
...but I started on one of the middle schools instrument piles that I haven't done yet, and I have to get these last two done by the first day of school - which is very soon.
Mrs bloke is fairly far along with this middle school's woodwinds, and my pile is four tubas, four French horns, and two baritone/euphoniums of some sort.
I managed to whip through the four tubas, get them all playing, all their moving parts moving, everything soldered down, and all of their whacks un-whackitated - in about five hours.
Two of them were that very cheapest grade of Jinbao rotary tubas (with the brass spatulas and the copper mouth pipes). These are very old instruments that I've managed to keep working for quite a few years. They wasted ridiculous money on new molded cases for them. The cases are worth more than the instruments, obviously.
The third one was one of those Jinbao copies of a B&S 101. It was a really early one, because someone had cut the main tuning slide down really short, and I remember way way back several decades ago when those first came out, and they were all too long. The last one was made in another Chinese factory, I can't remember the name of that factory, but it was one of those King 1140 copies. It wasn't too beat up... Well actually yes it was... And the bottom bow had come off of it.
Anyway all four of those are done - as far as me calling them "done" - since they will all make sounds that approximate musical sounds, all the moving parts will wiggle and slide, and all of the damage done by throwing them across the room several times is mostly pushed back out or smoothed back out.
I have no idea what I'm going to find when I open up the French horn cases or the two cases that either hold baritones or euphoniums. ... but I'm glad to have dispensed with the bulky huge junk, and I'm down to what I call "the smalls".
Again, this middle school is the next to last one of those, and then there's a handful of private high school instruments that came in so late that he can't possibly expect me to have those by the first day of school, so those I considered to be parenthetical.

I think there might be a light at the end of the tunnel, and then it's back to some really large projects for myself and some private customers.
...You guys actually might be interested in some of those.

There's a Holton 345 B flat that (not totally unexpected) had some fourth valve tubing made incorrectly at the factory which prompted them to jam and squish tubing together when they assembled the instrument up there in Wisconsin. I've handmade replacement parts with the correct geometry so that doesn't have to happen again, but I had to set it aside when all this school stuff came in... It's really not too far from being done.

There's also a Miraphone 86 B-flat that I would like to repair for a customer simultaneously while repairing one I have here to sell.. so that would be yet another "twin spin".

... and so on and so on...

I got a slightly earlier start today. It's 1:30 and I finished the four French horns about a half an hour ago. None of them were OMGs.

So all that's left from this Middle School is a English baritone that might be a Jupiter and a Yamaha euphonium. The prices I quoted indicate that they might be fairly easy as well.

Covid the cat killed and ate chipmunk a couple of days ago, and is not feeling well. We will take him to the vet tomorrow, please say some prayers for our beloved cat. We did shoot some worming medicine down through him, but don't believe we ought to send too many medicines through him when we don't really know what's wrong or even if he's sick because of eating that chipmunk.

Having taught middle school for many years, I admire any repairman who works on those brass instruments. In spite of my constant efforts to make the kids careful with the instruments, they could always find a way to damage them in "interesting" ways. I think part of it was small kids trying to handle full-grown instruments; I never liked 3/4 size horns except for 6th grade beginner bands. I have a brass repairman friend nearby who takes forever to get those instruments back to the schools. He is a great repairman but autistic and OCD, so he wants every horn to look like it came from the factory. I try to tell him that can wait for summer repairs, but during the school year, the directors just want them playable and back in kids' hands ASAP. Even more true with marching band instruments.

There's a reverse threaded screw on French style saxophone black plastic thumb rests.

Mrs bloke had one in a drawer, but not the right one to fit an Antigua brand student tenor saxophone that she was working on last night.

Hi and soldered the plate which - receives the three parts - and altered the threads on the plate to fit the piece that she had in stock.

I think I had her fixed up and fewer than 15 minutes.

You have to be creative.

.

MiBrassFS wrote: Wed Aug 06, 2025 2:43 am @bloke How’s Covid?

He's coming home today, but he still hasn't eaten. The doctor hopes that putting him back in his own environment (and not caged in a strange place) might help him relax and eat. He's all hydrated and boosted and everything. When they took him out of his cage and we visited with him for about thirty minutes yesterday at the animal hospital in one of the examination rooms he actually jumped from the examination table over to the counter where the sink is even with his I.V. attached. He responded to all the regular type of petting that I give him, but I could see that he was in pain. Of course he's been in pain... Think of what they had to do to him.

If he doesn't eat for two or three more days, we can always take him back and have them boost up his hydration level again. Even they themselves consider the surgery they did on him to be miraculous. I think the fact that they call us each morning at 8:00 and report that he's still doing pretty good (and don't find him laying there dead) is also miraculous.

The way higher cost of the Memphis places aside, I'm so glad that we waited until Monday to take him to this amazing animal hospital in this small town - yet another hour farther away from Memphis (which we've used for the past two decades with all of our animals) rather than one of these emergency (open on weekends, or even one that never closes) places in Memphis.

Thank you for your concern. He's my best buddy. You know, our animal family members are devoted to us, and never lie to us.
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Yesterday was a big day for the summer repairs. We dropped off a large load to a middle school (that got their instruments to us late due to various delays on their part), even though today was only their second day of school and they probably won't need any of their instruments for another day or two. We also got all the instruments back to a community college with a huge marching band. We then circled back to a middle and high school that had a really big repair load with us this year and owes us a good bit of money, but we dropped off two tubas with them (a sale) that sort of rounded their bill up to the maximum purchase total allowed for 90 days: We had a big Reynolds recording bass and one of those four valve Meinl-Weston model 11 tubas here that was ugly and brown but not dented at all. ... no cases no mouthpieces. This particular school system is trying to put a home practice tuba in every middle school student's hands. We just sold them these two instruments for what was left in what the school system could legally charge us. Particularly with the model 11, it was nice to just solder up a few braces, take out a few dents, and clean up the valves and slides without having to refinish it, because refinishing it would have sort of ruined the deal for anyone as far as pricing would have been concerned. The big Reynolds had been refinished probably a couple of decades ago and the brittle lacquer was flaking off as I removed its dents, but I just sort of went over it with an aggressive silver polishing cloth after I was done straightening it out and shot it with some rattle can clear lacquer. That should keep it from turning brown for a while.
Our final stop was at yet another school in the same area as all the other three it was sort of a budget High School in a not so well funded County whereby the whole high school's exterior is sheet metal, probably built 50 years ago. We didn't do any school repairs for them, but the new high school band director is a tuba player and he had brought his Jinbao Yamaha knock off 621 with the 16-in Bell, the silver plating and the 5th valve to us. He had dented it up somewhat and also the main tuning slide from the factory featured horrible alignment. I lined up the main tuning slide really nicely for him and a local friend of mine re-silver plated it after I got it all lined up properly...
... so other than some really minor stuff for two or three schools - probably no more than 10 or 12 instruments which are brass and 10 or 12 which are woodwind, the barn is about cleared out, and now we're just waiting for people to pay us.
... I think we're making it to the finish line on time.
Anyway, all those deliveries (which were all in a geographical area about 150 miles from the animal hospital) and then a trip to the animal hospital after changing from the van and trailer to the Toyota... That was sort of an exhausting day yesterday.