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...when the repair-guy tosses in at least an hour of work (which also requires some of his spouse's time) to do some stuff that the customer obviously would have LIKED to have had done, but didn't have the money to do it...so the repair guy does a "fair" (vs. "amazing") job and does it (for free) anyway.

This bottom bow (on Yamaha #2 of a school's four tubas...this is tuba #4) was smushed flat, the small side was flattened, and featured compound creases. The upper bow was fubar beyond my ability to pull my typical rabbits out of my hat...

...so the bottom bow had to come off to repair it's small end and the upper bow, EVEN THOUGH they didn't have the money to properly repair the bottom bow (as only budgeted was repairing the small end of the bow).

Hell... It's just plain stupid (even though no braces on these Yamahas) to remove a bottom bow and ONLY fix the small end, so (yeah) I did some free work.

I generally do NOT quote on replacing these (Japanese...?? Chinese...??) crappy bottom bow caps, as they (dealer) cost more than twice the cost of a Miraphone 186 (far nicer) nickel bottom bow cap...and (as everyone is smart enough to never have a 321 completely restored like new) I almost always try to repair these bows while NOT removing the cap. The soldering is usually so blobby - between the lacquers - on these things, that it's pretty difficult, but it is what it is.

OK...I got this cap area looking marginally so-so...but (again) no charge...and yeah, (after this lunch break) I'll go back and smooth out the easy (single-layer) dents on this bottom bow.

This is a NEW customer...and they need to know that I'm just as interested in customer happiness as I am in revenue. (Our short little lives' purposes are supposed to be to help out each other, yes? I'm certainly no saint, and have sinned MANY times, but I TRY to remember that.)...
...and - just maybe - whoever was playing it will be motivated by the improved looks of this ( not particularly great - even when new) tuba.


yeah...I'm still going to remove the easy-to-remove single-layer dents:




Here are a couple of pics of "why it had to come off"...The formerly-F.U.B.A.R. small end:


Sadly, I couldn't find anything exactly this diameter (to use as a "mold"), but - when I was a little kid - my Mom (a commercial artist) taught me how to draw circles without using a compass.

This child clearly got left behind ‘cause that math does not add up…

The three other ones will be handed back looking pretty good. This one would have been the misfit without at least doing a C+ job on the bottom bow.

MiBrassFS wrote: ↑Fri Feb 21, 2025 5:27 pm This child clearly got left behind ‘cause that math does not add up…

Impossible. We teachers were given a “No Child Left Behind” mandate, so clearly, your statement simply can’t be true.

Truth be told, I think some of those tuba dents are what happens when you divide by zero.

Teachers never gave whippings for students making failing grades and I don't know if any parents who did either, but I know of a bunch of parents who didn't allow their children to leave their house for the next 6 weeks or to have any friends over. ' funny how that sort of encouraged students to not fail. Teachers did give whippings and bad conduct grades for tearing up band instruments, though. It only took maybe one kid getting a whipping and a U in conduct (as well as having to pay for the repairs) to strongly discourage others from mishandling instruments.

Well, hopefully that 40% of “good will” and doing the right thing will arrive back to you from elsewhere when bill that school.

MiBrassFS wrote: ↑Sat Feb 22, 2025 2:37 am Well, hopefully that 40% of “good will” and doing the right thing will arrive back to you from elsewhere when bill that school.

I could have wasted the time that I spent making that bottom bow looking better on Facebook...or watching The View.

You’re getting to be downright charitable!

Yeah. Again, this is a new customer, and I try to be charitable to new customers (in not-particularly weathy districts) and do introductory pricing (whereby I still come out okay). I could tell this lady was worried about what repairing these things was going to cost, so sort of getting a sense of how much money she had to spend I just sort of quoted what I suspected she had available, rather than making her choose which ones of these tubas to get repaired.
There are also some sousaphones (US) that they have that are not being used, because this school does shoulder mount stuff. If I charge low prices for repairs (at least, this first batch), that sorta gives me permission to offer low prices on their surplus instruments as well.

I'll probably still made as much money as I do per hour on Christmas and Easter, and got to make that much while sitting in my own shop listening to the radio and - as I've developed so many good work saving techniques over the years with these things (again, as so many people tend to pigeonhole me as a tuba repair person) - mostly sitting down.

...the "free" bottom bow work...
Again, I did already charge her for removing it, because I just had to, and just decided to go ahead to sort of straighten it out to okay shape since it was off anyway. I did make it look just a bit better than the pictures above where I hadn't stopped working on it yet, but it really doesn't look that great. It's not a complete repair, but just sort of knocked out to the shape of a bottom bow again. I would have been at that thing for another 2 and 1/2 hours had I really made it look like it had never been damaged, and - no - I'm not quite that charitable.