WTH? A Holton 345 with SIX VALVES?

[MikeS]

Thanks for posting the video, Wade. I have to confess it made me think of an old SCTV bit. They would run 3D movies featuring John Candy as Dr. Tongue. Perhaps you could incorporate the sound effects, and maybe the costume, into your next effort. I look forward to “Dr. Wade’s 3D House of Tuba Crooks.”*



*Maybe you could get @bloke to channel his inner Count Floyd and do the intro.

[arpthark]

^ at a glance, I thought that was Squiggy from Laverne and Shirley.

[bloke]

Yeah, in my family I'm known as Buffy. I guess it can be either a male or female name. (It's been a lifelong hobby of mine to slay vampires.) Right now I'm listening to an amazing electrical storm, watching multiple inches per hour come down and overfill the ponds while eating Mrs bloke's pancakes and eggs, drinking her good coffee, and watching old Superman and Wonder Woman episodes while partially still tucked in the bed after 10:00 a.m. . It's time to get up, put my dirty clothes back on, and go see if I can make some money out in the shop.

Back to your regularly scheduled constantly reformatted Holton.
I'm thinking there's more versions of this Holton than there are of Microsoft browsers and iPhonz.

[the elephant]

The first photo is the version of the 6th circuit that did not fit well within its niche in the bugle.

The second one shows the proposed new circuit. I still need to measure, trim, assemble, and buff it all (and photograph it against a less washed-out background).

The first one had a very short slip-fit receiver for a tenon on the bugle's final inner branch (a shorter version of what is currently on the horn) that works like a greased slide leg. The 1st crook made the circuit too short to reach, and it was wide enough that it touched the 5th slide.

This new one incorporates the much shorter, space-saving Yamaha union and a 2nd crook, which raises up the slide where I can reach it, and puts enough space between 5 and 6 that I can get my hand around either crook. It also uses an old St. Pete valve that fits the space better than the Miraphone valve does.

That mo bettuh.

[bloke]

What about a minor 3rd 7th GG valve, so you can have a full-blown double tuba? Then, you can march with one of those old-guys drum corps.

[the elephant]

All parts measured and cut. This is what it will look like.



Yellow — I still have to cut this ferrule. That is a beater St. Pete ferrule on there in the photo.

Blue — I have a piece of nickel silver scrap spliced into this for the pic, and this long ferrule will be cut into two to make the yellow ferrule and this one.

Green — this "L" outlined in green is something I may have in the right size somewhere in a drawer. I have to look. If not, I will splice in some brass tubing where the NS stub is right now.



The spliced-together "L" is a little crooked. I have to trim the end at the yellow circle about a millimeter or so to fix that. Pretty good for a first mockup, though. I think it will work well, be in tune (meaning no trimming will have to be done once it has been installed), and should fit in the space much better than the previous version with the wider slide crook.

The slide could have up to a 1.5" longer pull, but it is under a branch, so I need it to be short enough to be removable. I would hate to have it caged in there, only removable when the valve has been removed from the tuba! Nope! (I have to have room for a pull ring up top, too.)

More later…

[the elephant]

Well, I made an update about an hour ago and it has been deleted.

There was no offensive content. Nothing that could be twisted into a legal or even remotely controversial statement.

WTF…?

Okay. Trying again.

I managed to find an adequate runner for this slide circuit so that the final design includes only one "patch", which is a 4mm internal spacer to cover a gap between the valve and the new runner. To cover the 4mm spacer I have a ferrule in place that is 12mm long.

The new part is a length of St. Pete tubing, so it is plated. I will have to buff the nickel off, which ought not to be too difficult because that plating is thin…

I will buff the elbow and then solder all this together tomorrow.

[the elephant]

Everything has been soldered together. I need to install a pull ring, but I seem to have misplaced my baggie of Miraphone 2nd slide rings.

Dang it…

The old St. Pete ferrule (opposite the Yamaha union) is junk and will be replaced. I had to insert a spacer between the rotor knuckle and the long=side runner (with the long ferrule to hide the little abomination). I was unhappy with the fit at first. My nice, flat, even spacer did not make nice, tight joints against the crookedly cut rotor knuckle and the FUBARed end of the Miraphone runner. After some trimming and filing, it is now a pair of very decent joints that should not cause any weirdness, acoustically. It is all very smooth inside, with no gaps.







Nice, flat edges yield nice, tight joints.

[the elephant]

I am about to be snowed under with playing work and have to set this aside until May. I thought this would be a nice stopping point for the time being. Thank you to the few who follow these projects and pass along occasional words of encouragement.

More later…

[Tubajug]

I am about to be snowed under with playing work and have to set this aside until May. I thought this would be a nice stopping point for the time being. Thank you to the few who follow these projects and pass along occasional words of encouragement.

More later…

Are you still using it in its five valve configuration?

[the elephant]

Yes. The bugle has to be altered for this to fit. I have to remove the tenon system that the 5th connects to and replace it with the female half of this Yamaha leadpipe union. Then I will have to delete the tenon half from the 5th valve and solder the two valves together. And the large side, outer MTS tube has to be trimmed and all three braces have to be moved.

Then I have to create the lever and linkage.

Still a long way off, and why I need to set this aside until I have more time. The Holton is fully playable right now and will remain that way until May or perhaps June when my summer off-season begins.

I am still having a bit of a "playoff" between the YamaYork and the Holton. I played a massive John Williams program on the Holton. We had two rehearsals and I used each horn for a rehearsal.

We just played Prokofiev's 5th Symphony with four rehearsals and I used the Holton on two of them and the Yamaha on two. I played the concert on the Yamaha. The bass trombonist preferred the Holton and took the time to tell me so. He loves the Yamaha but said the Holton made "the right sound" for the Prokofiev. I tend to agree, but the part was so EASY to play on the Yamaha. In reality, the Williams concert probably should have been played on the Yamaha, so I sort of did these two in reverse of what needed to happen.

I think what is happening is that the Miraphone is being replaced by the Yamaha, not the Holton. I would never have guessed this when I bought it. It is truly an amazing tuba, but it is not a Holton 345. It can easily be dialed down to inflict a 186 level of destruction; the Holton can be played very softly with lots of clarity, but it always sounds like a 345. The Yamaha is much more flexible in this way. So my excellent 186 is up for sale and I am keeping the Holton.

i guess.

That is the play right now. I am having a lot of trouble making a decision on which horn has to be sold. I wish I could keep them all. If that was practicable I would still have my excellent Adams F, too.

[the elephant]

Because a few have asked:

I changed the slide to have one longer leg because it pulls better. Very short slides can rock sideways a tiny bit when being inserted or removed and can bind up. Having enough scrap tubing of the correct sizes allowed me to lengthen this very short slide so that it is far easier to remove or adjust on the fly. This is important as the slide is buried in the bowels of the tuba, not easy to get a solid grip on, so an easy, smooth pull is a must.

[the elephant]

Well, I'm too dang sick to be blowing into my horn, so I don't go making myself sick again and again. I have to remove the leadpipe and clean it out before I practice again. Broughton is fast approaching, and I don't need this sort of crapola right now.

So because I can't just sit around on my butt when I am too sick to play but not quite dead, I decided to work on this project some. I wore out after two hours and had to quit, but managed to get to a very decent quitting point, so I am not unhappy.

I drilled and tapped the rear cap for a Mirapone-style grub screw. I will have to play this tuba with the valve installed but before I can get to making the lever and linkage, so the screw will lock the valve open so we have no weird, onstage half-valve incidents because the new 5th valve floated out of the fully open position while I am playing. (This happened with the Kurath on a quintet gig when the valve and slide were installed, but there was nothing attached to the stop arm. This was a textbook "no bueno" case.)

So now this St Pete valve has a grub screw in the rear cap. Nice. I love my little commie lathe.

I also finished working the small burr in the rotation of the rotor from when the case became airborne in the backyard due to my being careless with the buffer a few years ago. It has been restored to as-new functionality.

I finished fitting the inner/outer slide tubes. This took some time as all four tubes were scraps with minor damage to the ends. Now the slide pulls very well.

I added a pull ring to the slide crook.

I did the second buffing, still using only cutting compound. No color buffing yet. My eyesight is not what it used to be, so I have to do this work in stages, whereby I inspect everything between steps away from the machine using magnifiers and a strong light.

Gone are the days when I could do this in one step while standing at the machine.

Sheesh.

Pics…

Sexy and ready to install…


Pull ring…


I use Lava soap for the coarser work, but it leaves a scratchy-looking finish for me, so I go back over it all with that nasty Ferree's "Ultra Smooth". While it looks nicer, it is oil-based and a bit of a PITA to clean up.


The lathe is a fantastic addition to my tiny shop. I can do things accurately and in only a few minutes now that used to take me hours, while leaving me embarrassed about my work being off-center or crooked. The only thing I dislike is that the Redneck Hardware Store only sells metric grub screws in corase threading, so the fine adjustability is not there at all. And it is a hex head rather than Torx or slotted. Whatever. It cost me a buck and a half, and the tap was five bucks. I'll take it, regardless.


Nice. I have always wanted to be able to do this sort of work with this sort of accuracy.

[York-aholic]

Re: lathe

I totally agree. Mine is a Rockwell wood lathe with a metal working tool rest/xy slide thingy that Rockwell offered for them. I’m sure it’s not nearly as accurate as yours but…

I had a ferrule that needed to be just a hair bigger. Chucked it up and opened it up just one hair. Perfect fit.

Saved me a bunch of work with sandpaper on a dowel.

[the elephant]

HEY, KIDS, the "word of the day" is:

BELLCRANK

[the elephant]

I have been working on how to set up a lever for the 6th on this tuba. I have several ideas, all being in front of or behind the 1st slide. On the Kurath, the 5th and 6th levers are horizontal and behind the 1st slide.



I was planning to retain the right thumb 5th and add the 6th lever to the front side of the 1st slide, pointed up (vertically) high enough to be reachable if the slide is pulled, but low enough to clear the crook when the slide has been pushed in all of the way. This would be actuated by the left middle or index finger.

Alternatively, I could place it behind the slide in the same configuration, operated by the left thumb.

Really, it comes down to mechanical simplicity and whether I need the link to pull or push the rotor.

I have discovered that I use the 6th on the F tuba a lot more than I had anticipated. FAR more. Likewise, I likely will use this 6th valve far more than I am thinking at the present time, once I have figured out its uses.

On the F, using 5/6 like a CC tuba's 1/2 works out logically for me so well that I may try to duplicate that setup on this tuba. 5/6 will functionally be 1/2 on a tuba in GG.

So I can ditch my hinky 5th lever!

However, this tuba, huge as it is, does not have a space for the levers analogous to that used on the Kurath. So now I am looking at two narrow French horn levers in front of the 1st slide, likely placed vertically on their side. Imagine 5/6 on an old LH rotary tuba, but mounted on (or near) the 1st slide, using smaller-than-tuba-sized levers so as not to stick out as something really weird.

The Kurath showed me that this thin-gauge nickel-silver tubing can flex if you mount spring levers to it and then torque them all the time, and this causes issues with the action of the slide. I learned how to spread the load to minimize that, and maybe I can figure out how to do this to the Holton.

I am liking this so much that it is now at the head of my "idea parade" for these levers.

I love the setup of my Kurath, so maybe the Holton would benefit from the same setup? It sure would make them more consistent when moving between them on a gig, but in truth, that could be a negative. For instance, years ago, I used to love that my F was a piston tuba and my CC had rotors. With my dyslexia, the different types of valves helped me keep the fingering patterns I needed to be using. Maybe making them functionally the same would make this clarity for me go away?

I think I can find a way to mount these two levers so that they do not flex the slide tubes when the levers are pressed.

What say ye regarding the levers being together like a 1/2 and located so that I can easily get to my slide?

[bloke]

What you don't need is someone like me laying on his bed in his underwear saying "what I would have done is..."

Risking being annoying - as I usually am, I probably would have explored (notice the word "explored" and not "proceeded with") locating the 5th and 6th levers somewhere near the classic F tuba position up high on the players left side of the instrument and then reassigning the right thumb to a #1 slide trigger, as constant adjusting of that slide seems to be so important with contrabass instruments.

Speaking from ignorance, there's so much more stuff on a contrabass tuba (and certainly on a huge one) that there just may have been no possible way to fish any linkage from that portion of the instrument over to rotors, regardless of whether the stop arms faced the right or the left or any other angle.

I would love to have a sixth valve on my big fat B flat tuba, but my work around is to tune fourth slide for a barely sharp 2-4 B natural and a barely flat low F, both of which are quite flexible at all dynamic ranges, and I play C almost always with 1-3 with the first slide out about to its limit... Unless there's some fast fingering snafu, whereby I'll go ahead and play C with the fourth valve.

As one might predict, low E is 523, and pitches below that - other than the hopelessly-sharp 5234 C (which is never called for) - mostly tend slightly flat, which keeps me honest, and I've spoken a great length (in other threads) about preferring to play a bit flat in that extremely low range anyway.

I do use the full range of the first valve slide from all the way in for second space C to all the way out nearly for 1-3 C an octave lower, and I actually re-centered the range of the 1st slide from the factory setup to being able to affect both of these extremes for tuning.

... We all (all of us who have decided to attempt to dial in our instruments) do what we perceive that we need to do based on what we have to work with.