WTH? A Holton 345 with SIX VALVES?

[the elephant]

Okay, so the photoshopped valve gave me a sort of "visual earworm"…

I just remembered from my fence-building days that a percentage of the above-ground length of the fence post *must* be below ground level. That percentage depends on how the post is sunk and the type of soil. Around here, a nine-foot fence needs to have four feet in the ground, so you have to cut 13' posts and dig some deep holes for the cement and post.

Not that this matters. What matters is WHY this is necessary, and THAT applies here.

The post of the stop arm is applying a twisting torque to the valve stem — and the screw post, so enough stem must be present to negate that. Otherwise, the collar of the stop arm that grips the valve stem could become a little canted, and that can snap the head off from the screw and that super-short stop arm collar could pop off while you're playing.

I think this could be solved by cutting it 1 to 2 mm longer and drilling/tapping to use a heavier screw that is less likely to snap the head. The added height (which is a lot as this is a very tight space) could be made up by dumping the very tall Miraphone mushroom-headed screw for a flat cheesehead screw. So lose 2 mm in clearance at the stop arm, but gain it back via the screw head.

Cool. Lots to think about…

[the elephant]

Dang. Four posts in a row with zero work done outside of "cogitatin' ".

I need to cut back on the caffeine…

[bloke]

I didn't really follow all of that, but I've worked on some old Czech tubas with ~extremely~ short valve stems that worked quite well, hadn't been treated very nicely, yet weren't very worn, either.

Anyway, whatever you do is always amazing.

I've had far more stainless steel center screws (particularly Chinese ones) with the same 3mm thread as German ones break off than nickel brass center screws, so you might (??) choose to alter some Miraphone dome head center screws, rather than swapping them out for low-profile stainless steel ones, maybe even if the stainless steel ones are high grade. I suspect (??) the nickel brass ones stretch a bit (rather than snap) when they're really torqued.

[the elephant]

I would likely make it from nickel silver rod stock on my lathe. (A cheese head screw is probably the easiest to make (a pan head would take a few more steps and I'm lazy), and I could make the head profile pretty low.) But I would not put a steel screw into a brass part; I have never liked doing that.

I don't think anyone would follow some of my posts because sometimes I use the act of typing to think things through and develop an idea. Bass-ackwards, I know, but it works for me.

All I was saying was that if I install the valve stem-up it would actually be canted in toward the pistons about 45º, so the stem becomes buried within the 45º angled "sousaphone-looking" piston set. (It is actually a B&M/Nirschl set.) This works best for the valve but makes hooking it up to anything other than a pull-string just about impossible.

Flipping the valve to be stem-down (again, actually canted about 45º with the stem tilted into the bugle branches) the stem and button screw head interfere terribly, not allowing the valve to be installed in this orientation. The cork plate hits the top bow as well. Double loser.

But that orientation would allow for a short, direct link to a lever behind the 1st slide. I was trying to figure out how to get that valve to fit in that space in that orientation. I think I can do it. I have to mock stuff up tomorrow to see whether this is worth pursuing.

[bloke]

things...

Those early St. Pete tuba rotors escaped from either the front or back, weren't crap, were c. the same bore as the kaiser Miraphone, and were smaller diameter (probably would squeeze into more places than Miraphone...yes, smaller diameter than 186 casings).

I wonder if T.E. can still get those, and/or if one of us might stumble across one of those (Grand Rapids eBay?) that's trashed so badly that the rotor salvage would be bargain-priced?

It might not solve this particular issue of yours, but could be a work-around for others.

[the elephant]

I have a small box of those. Great valves. They are a tad smaller in bore (21mm) than my Miraphone valves (22 mm), but I will check the case OD with a caliper. I have two that work really well and could swap out my expensive (comparatively) Miraphone valves with the ($70 each) cheaper St. Pete valves.

This one was the Holton's 5th valve for about ten years. I bought them from Mike and they were in raw brass, which I love.

[the elephant]

Holy crap, guys! I just dodged a real financial bullet! I got caught with my pants down by the weather. It dropped below 22ºF before 6:00 p.m. and I was not thinking of the pipes at all. I have about ten inches of exposed-to-nature copper water pipes (long story, hole in the exterior wall, blah, blah, blah) and we have to set up this Rube Goldberg device to make it through these hard freezes. I had it set up but had not turned it on for the evening, et voila! one of the pipes froze hard.

I had to go outside and work on it with the heat gun for over a half hour, but finally got it to flow fully, and there were no leaks, so it did not split. Hallelujah, baby!

Everything is set up and turned on, the taps are dripping, and no other incidents are expected for this round in my epic battle against Mother Nature.

So this is a good thing.

AND NOW, BACK TO OUR REGULARLY SCHEDULED PROGRAM…
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I did some putzing around with all my rotary valves to see whether a Miraphone valve could work in the inverted position I discussed in my previous post.

He swings. He misses.

The cork plate and the length of the stem are indeed deal-breaking things that sort of depressed me because I had been so sure this would work.

Joe and I discussed St. Pete rotors (with bearings, cork plates, and stop arms that are — IMHO — too small), which are well-made and -designed valves. I like them very much, and the two I am looking at have both served as the 5th valve on this tuba in the past. St. Pete rotors are worth buying and installing on a nice horn when you need a 21mm valve and don't have the funds for a 21 mm Miraphone valve unit.

So, here is why I am blabbing about this. It fits. It works. No modification is needed except to set up the stop arm, which I usually have to do anyway, as a normal part of rotating a rotor so you can link to it 90º off from the intended direction. Worth noting here: the one I want to use as a 6th valve needs this small mod. THE OTHER ONE WAS LAST SET UP AS THE HOLTON'S 5TH VALVE SO THIS WORK HAS ALREADY BEEN DONE! WHOOP-WHOOP!

Okay, so now I have to go run my photos through Markup and post them here. Maybe I can avoid the stupid arrows and circles. Let me see…

This first one is for bloke. The St. Pete valve cases are LARGER than the Miraphone ones. The St. Pete body is the same OD as the Miraphone top plate decorative "coin", so that makes the Miraphone about 2 mm narrower than the post-commie valve.


You can see in the above photo that the bearing is a bit thinner/less robust than the Miraphone one. In this pic, you can see how much smaller the St. Pete hardware is.


Here you can clearly see how tight this space is, but there are between 1/16" and 1/8" between everything, and this will be pretty rigidly mounted, so no worries. It just looks bad. (Keep in mind that this assembly is removable, so I have complete access to it for maintenance.) The barrel on the right of the stop arm will not be there. This is the altered one for the 5th valve; I grabbed it for the photo by mistake. The other one is stock. If needed, the stem and stop arm can be shortened about 1/8" for additional clearance, but at this time I think I can avoid that.


Here it is from the rear. You can see there will be adequate space between the bugle and the 2nd piston for the slide tubes. It is tight, but more than adequate. The valve has to be moved toward the end of the bugle by about 3/4" and I already have the parts cut and fitted. The connection will be a super-short slide as in the past because that works so well and is easy. Both slide ports will be pointed to the rear; this valve is rotated 90º because that ferrule fits on the 6th branch connector better than the one I will use. So I lied a bit. The cork plate has to be rotated 90º but that is very easy to do.


I have just barely enough room to run a rod between the bugle and the 4th tube, but setting that up (and servicing it) will be a PITA. Rather, I think I may extend the stop arm half of an inch and run the rod alongside the 5th tube. Not sure yet, but there is adequate room.


This will be the routing of the lever and link arm. I will use Markup on this and repost it in a little while. Note that my fat thumb is about half a foot behind that brace's twist barrel. The barrel is not that large. I am not that small.

[the elephant]

Okay, so I want an L-shaped, reverse French horn-style lever fixed to a bracket that will be soft-soldered to the backside of the two 1st slide legs. This will spread the torque from the spring load so the thin slide tube does not become warped due to the lever being flexed back and forth tens of thousands of times. I will use wide brace feet, too, to help this.

The lever will be routed to the valve by a very simple, straight rod, with the valve end being bent about 15º to allow it to swing around the valve stem without clicking.

Easy. Nothing touches the bugle, to remove the 5th/6th section from the bugle you just slide it off the bugle's tenon. To remove the pistons you will have to remove the eight screws and pop off the 5th linkage from the valve. Now you will also have to pop off the 6th linkage. Not difficult at all.

I dislike the 6th slide I made, but I had to use what I have on hand, so it will work. I will buy the parts to make the slide circuit that I want at a later date. I CAN DESIGN, CUT, AND ASSEMBLE THE PARTS OFF OF THE TUBA because this section is removable. Nice!

[York-aholic]

Again, I enjoy seeing/hearing your thought process.

I just had to rotate a cork stop plate 90 degrees for my Martin medium Eb w/King valves project. It is rather simple, as you say, but for us ‘lesser experienced’ peeps, it was a bit nerve wracking to drill 2 new holes in the rotor casing. At least I remembered to remove the rotor body first.

[Mary Ann]

You know what? I am actually glad that I am physically incapable of doing this type of work, because it would have 100% taken over my life if I could, and I see what the consequence of that is!!!

[the elephant]

Hey, the Miraphone rotor that I had planned to use FITS JUST FINE in the flipped orientation, but I will have to 1.) rotate the cork plate, and 2.) delete the "collar" of the stop arm. I don't even have to shorten the stem, though I might.

Remarkable.

That is the better choice. Everything works out better in this case.

I was finally able to actually measure (rather than using the old eyecrometer method) and I have to remove 1.25" from the tenon at the 6th branch not to lose any of my main tuning slide. Of course, it isn't even that long, so that is impossible. I already made a replacement that deletes about half of that, so I will be losing 3/4" of MTS pull, which sucks. There is no way around it, though.

Scheming ensues…

[bloke]

What a difference "sleeping on something" for a night or two makes.

[the elephant]

Okay, so maaaaaybe not the Miraphone valve… It will work if I machine off the "collar" around the stop arm, but once it can rotate to where it needs to be clocked, it is still very tight. The St. Pete valve fits better. The main UNFIXABLE issue is that the St; Pete case top is closer to the knuckles; it is shorter. So the entire unit is farther from the bugle branch than the top of the Miraphone case. This cannot be altered and will likely steer my final choice. Yes, it can be made to fit, but the St. Pete case fits better from the get-go and will take much less work to install.

I guess I need to work on these parts for a few days to get a better understanding of how they will eventually fit.

[bloke]

Stubby Holton's rotor cap misses the 5th bow (below it) by angstroms.
Without debate, there are many advantages to using detachable braces and detachable rotor casings. Being a cheapskate, I look for workarounds...
... another fault of mine is that when I've got an instrument to where it's playable, ignore the cosmetics and the final touch ups and just start playing it.

examples of workarounds (to avoid buying hardware from "that guy" - and - admittedly - he and his wife are very nice folks...)





BUT...These two slides block screwdriver access to the rotor center screw:



Removing these two slides offers 0-degree (perfect) access to this rotor's center screw:




more topical:
Yeah, I suspect the St Petersburg rotor bodies will just fit, based on what you're showing us.

[the elephant]

... another fault of mine is that when I've got an instrument to where it's playable, ignore the cosmetics and the final touch ups and just start playing it.

Oh, same, here. I still have "mess" on all three of my homefried tubas.

Removing these two slides offers 0-degree (perfect) access to this rotor's center screw:

Yeah, I do that sort of thing all the time, when needed. Expediency rules the roost. Regarding work on my personal tubas, however, I have this demented, neurotic obsession that someday after I die, whomever Scottye sells my stuff to will take it to a shop and the tech will think, "What sort of jacka$$ designed this crap?" And in my grave, my bones will shudder in embarrassment. So — it just bugs me. I do not mind the visible solder so much. (Yes, it bugs me, too, just not so much.) I want some tech in the future to look at my sh¡t and say, "This guy was a GD genius." HAHAHA!!!

Also, none of this matters if it is removable. I guess I have had mystery rattles and buzzes and the like in the past and am trying to avoid anything that might do that in the future.

Headed off to play Mahler's "Rückert-Lieder: Um Mitternacht" and space out to a Haydn symphony TACET sheet, so three evenings of "New World Symphony" syndrome. I'll probably have chewed my right hand off after all that "resting", but I am being paid very well for the tacets, so no complaints in that regard. (It's not that I don't want to be there — I WANT TO PLAY MORE.) However, I like "Mitternacht", as far as Mahler-darkness goes. At least the five songs are not as dark as the other Rückert poems he set to music (Songs on the Death of Children) which is DARK…

Bonus: This is the MSO, but not an MSO service, and therefore not a part of my salary, so I GET PAID. What a high-quality (and easy) freelance gig.

[bloke]

I'll eventually put a finish on that thing...and my F tuba...but (ha. Who am I foolin'?)

I WILL - though - put a finish on the bass sax before putting on on EITHER of those tubas...' cause pads 'n' stuff...

wandering off topic even more...
I'm so happy with the short neck I made for it.
I messed around with it just now (before putting it back away for away because (duh) I just did some work on it.
There are NO bell key pads (as I had to pull them off to measure their gigantic diameters for special ordering replacements), and the rest of the pads are horrible...but with the SOFTY-SOFT #2 clear plastic reed - I can blow past the epic leaks.

It's REALLY encouraging to turn on the tuner, and see a bunch of GREEN lights.

,,,and (as Mrs. bloke was watching an old M.A.S.H. episode) and I played along with it, not only was it (yeah, even with the TERRIBLE pads) in tune with the TV, but (hey...) I discovered that I'm barely accustomed enough to the sax to fake the tune - in real time, yet.

bloke "encouraged, but not too much"

[York-aholic]

I want some tech in the future to look at my sh¡t and say, "This guy was a GD genius.”

[bloke]

Did I miss a picture of you holding the tuba and ghosting where your two levers are going to be for five and six? Are they going to be like the F tuba thing that you did?

[the elephant]

You missed nothing. I am leaving the 5th as it is (for now?). The 6th will never be used much, so technical facility with it is unnecessary. It will have a little French horn lever behind the 1st slide, as in the photo above.

[bloke]

That's cool. I'm going to bet a quarter on you using it more often than you think.

...I put that left wrist operated goofy thing on my big tuba so I could tune the various 2-3 combinations (yeah, which are just as nebulous on valved instruments as the fifth position is on a trombone). I figured I'd use it "when it was really important"... I guess "all the time" is really important. ...but I am using it in a different way than I suspected: Most of the 2-3 pitches are best with that slide all the way in, so I just sort of routinely "rest hard" on that contraption - defining it as pushed in. The only time I lift is for low F-sharp, which (pretty typical with contrabass tubas) needs the slide to extend to full length...

...a lot of seemingly-all-about-bloke rhetoric to suggest that you might find that you'll possibly use that sixth valve more often than you think you will, because it will be available... and might even find additional purposes for it other than those that you're now predicting.