' no time to understand 'em...Raw-hoiiid !!! HE-YAW !!!

[bloke]

Some of you might remember when I first offered to iron out bows and bells for people's frankentuba projects.

I recall Mr. Greenjeans (back when he was one of those who routinely chased me around the site) criticizing me for not being willing to do complete realizations of them...me: protecting others from spending 5X as much for my labor as their final realized "concepts" - likely - would be monetarily worth...

Anyway, three or four people have taken me up on it, and I can squeeze these in between routine local repairs.

Here's a euphonium (??) American baritone (??) top bow that was squashed flat on the large side and round the curve, as well as being seriously dinked up on the small side.

I have no idea what it's going to end up being for or on...not my yob.

...but it's done.

The next two (I'll probably look at them today as well) are a 6/4 top bow and the next (smaller) bottom bow to the same instrument.

The shop's warm and the radio's on. I guess I'll head back out...I just wanted to bring that (completed) piece in and put it in a box, to reduce the likelihood of re-damaging it.

[bloke]

Here's the 2nd (not so-called "bottom", but) lower bow from a 6/4.

The apex of the arc is nice and round...' measures 2.130" all the way around.
I enjoy using my rounding rings. They aren't anything "automatic", but they allow "round" to be more easily achievable.

[bloke]

Here's the big 6/4 top bow.
They have a vintage (narrow) oem guard wire (in good condition) to take off of a somewhat useless large upper bow and transfer to this one, so I'm not going to bother to repair the guard wire and re-install it, but I probably will go ahead and strip the lacquer for them.

These three repaired pieces will probably go out tomorrow.






I'm doing more-and-more of this sort of stuff, and I seem to be getting faster-and-faster and better-and-better at it.
...ie. I don't much like doing it, but - at least - it's easy and doesn't take very long.

[bloke]

I discovered that the owner was planning on Scotchbriting the lacquer off the large upper bow...
Hell..They'd likely be dead before being done with that, so I buffed it for them.

A helpful TIP to those who believe that buffing off lacquer takes off too much metal (as many claim this is so).
- Use a hefty machine (bare minimum 1 hp...preferrably multi-horse).
- In, particular, if only 1750 rpm (again) 3/4 horse just isn't enough.
- preferably, something in the range of 2500 - 2800 rpms.
- Use PLENTY of buffing compound (tripoli) so as to cut through lacquer in a spot right away, and IMMEDIATELY move to another spot.

The amount of brass this removed is the same amount (or - likely - LESS) that the amount of tripoli buffing required for a good "last pass" - as far as checking for imperfections (ie. incomplete dent removal).

Also...(again) rounding rings...SO VERY handy...

Finally...Avoid buying sh!t that other peeps have already torn up and some slob has previously "overhauled"...There's nothing left there to fix...ie. "skeletal remains".

bloke "I don't use files nor sandpaper as dent-removal tools."

[bloke]

I found this baritone horn (euphonium?) bottom bow in the PACKING MATERIAL...so it took me a bit longer to "pack" everything back up than I anticipated...

...ie. "packing" involved FIXING this smushed 4th piece:

[MiBrassFS]

Looks good!

———————————

Ya know, it’s kinda difficult to get good pictures of shiny stuff without a bunch of effort and good enough equipment. I noticed that a while back…

[bloke]

After repairing the really large upper bow, I'm a little bit jealous of the owner of it, as it turned out remarkably nice. I have one here (same as this one) that I own that I worked very hard on (because it was smushed nearly flat). I don't have a tuba for it right now, but I have it for when I eventually do have a tuba for it. It turned out just about as well as the one pictured in this thread, but it sure was a lot more work to get it there. These upper bows on these six quarter American tubas can be a lot of work to make nice again. The bottom bows are as well, but I sort of have a method for those, and the top ones I just have to mess with them until they look nice. Luckily - with this one, I didn't have to mess with it very long, and it transformed itself remarkably quickly.

So what this customer sent me was the top bow and the next smaller lower bow to an American six quarter, and the bottom bow and the top bow to what seems to be an American baritone horn.