Holton 345 Redux

[the elephant]

[the elephant]

FRANKEN-BAT FRIDAY: Wasting Away Again Stuck in Minutiae-ville
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I have decided that my far-out-in-space outer 4th slide is structurally pretty weak. Also, I want the valve section as a whole to be rock solid by itself. I just want that to bolt securely to the bugle without the shifting that some King 2341s suffered from. My Kurath F uses all the same braces I am using for this horn, save for the really large four that will be the most important anchors to the bugle. It has shifted around a little and I have learned from that. So this *very heavy* tuba will be getting a LOT of braces that cannot shift position so easily, and I will try to keep them as short as possible. Anyway, we'll have to see how that goes. Removable valves on such a large horn may be a mistake, but this is how I learn.

I have all the detachable braces I need, but I have started running out of fixed braces. I am using new King parts for these, and I need about seven or eight more to make me happy with the structure of the complete valve section.

That means that all day long I have been pouring out boxes of old, nasty, solder-covered braces and sorting them out very carefully, searching first for King and Holton, then moving on through all the other diamond- and square-footed braces like Bohm & Meinl, weeding out all my various round- or oval-footed braces. Everything is all neatly bagged and labeled now.

It was cathartic, like a great clearing out of some cranial constipation…

Now all my "candidate" fixed brace feet are in the box for this project. I will probably end up with one oddball diamond brace that is (of course) out in plain sight. I will have to dig through my broken braces as I know I have at least one more King foot of the correct size that was not silver soldered together worth a flip. (I heated it up to pull out the post and the socket came right off. WTF is up with that, Conn-Selmer?) If I can find one more I will be good after they have been repaired.

I also have a need for small footprint square (or "short diamond") feet to fit in some tight spaces, but they also need to be King parts, or at least the very similar B&M or Holton sockets. And after my searching, I ended up with about 25 candidate braces, but ended up selecting (for today) two very small, matching King brace feet pairs, four medium-sized of the same, and one of the old Böhm & Meinl braces that is a close match to the King socket shape.

All of these needed to have gobs of old solder removed, careful foot reshaping, and then removal of the silver plate. After all that I had to clean and degrease them. As luck would have it, I have all three sizes of rod needed to fit the various sockets.

So after a morning of hunting and organizing, and an afternoon of making chicken salad out of chicken sh¡t I now have another six *correct* braces to reinforce my 4th slide circuit and both legs of the MTS as well as one oddball that is usable. Tomorrow I will look into scaring up two more King diamond feet.

Half of what I did today was just organizing boxes of what had been junk parts into little caches of good parts. The photos are of what I did this afternoon…

This is just one small pile out of about twenty that I picked through, searching for parts for this tuba.


With braces of the diamond type, the points are SHARP! Even with my heavy buffing gloves, buffing these things can be dangerous, and since I am outdoors, they can disappear into the kudzu in the blink of an eye. To make the buffing go faster, after having adjusted the fit of this batch of feet I soldered them in groups of four to this hunk of nickel silver pipe of the correct diameter. They are not fully soldered, but messily tacked down. Since they have been carefully fit to this tube I just put a drop of flux on the tube where each foot was to go, set the pipe in a hunk of wood I routed out a channel in for such work, and set the feet on the pipe. No wire or clamps. Just gravity. When they fit really well, the flux sort of sucks them down to the pipe. Also, their position did not matter, nor did solder slop. This idea paid off in spades; I got done in half the usual time, without injury.


Same-same, just another angle to show how these are set up for silver removal.


Et voila! These fit the slide tubing very well, are free of silver plate, clean, degreased, and ready for use.

[the elephant]

It keeps looking the same, but I assure you that it's not…

The piston section is now fully (and comically) braced. The 5th valve needs one more to keep the MTS lined up. (Only one is doing that job at the moment.) I still need the seven or eight braces to lock all this dead weight to the bugle. That will happen very soon…

I am using what I've learned from my Kurath F tuba, which I did this same conversion to about three years ago. Trust me: The extra braces are needed.

I did no cleanup today. None. I didn't even wipe off errant flux with a degreaser. Tomorrow is nothing but spot buffing, and general cleaning, and hand-polishing; I'll do it then.

All slides work very well now, and I made the switch to Super Lube, which (so far) I really like.

I am completely beat, man. My steaming, hot shower was glorious; supper ought to be excellent. Right now I'm just farting into the winds that are the Internet with my favorite cat lying on my side, purring away madly.

So here is your dirty hornporn, kids…

The classic school photo…


One of those wallet-sized Olan Mills photos…


Two of those sexy 1990s "Glamour Shots" photos…

[the elephant]

That horn makes me think it’s what Yamaha would’ve made if they had clean-sheeted a 6/4 design. The valve set looks like the 822s and the slide layout looks very clean.

[the elephant]

I took about ten more photos for my "late-night study session" as I have to nail down where *exactly* the detachable braces will live.

I discovered that the dogleg from the inner 4th slide ought not to stay where it is.

First, the final layout of the 4th circuit gives me room to lengthen the bell-side leg by about 1.25" which will make the pull better. Having both legs an inch in length with a crook span of about four inches isn't much fun to align, but having a medium leg with the super-short makes things easier. This alteration would also give me locations for two more of my detachable braces. This realization made my evening. (Yeah, I have pretty low standards as to what makes my evening. I know.)

In the pics, the red represents the very heavy Instrument Innovations braces. I have four of them at the outer corners of the valve section. The green balls, on the top bow side, are Yamaha braces, and on the bell side are a pair of Conn-Selmer braces. The yellow and white represent the dogleg and the extended slide leg location.

[the elephant]

Old inner 4th slide…



I m taking a break for lunch. This is where it is as of 3:30 today. The two slide legs were only an inch in pull, so it was not a very smooth slide; the crook span and the short legs allowed it to rock a bit, which will bind up the slide. Now the outer leg is 2.5" of pull, which works *much* more nicely.



I am pretty much done with the valve section, now. I will spend all afternoon with my air compressor on and my 2" buffer whining away angrily in my ear. The places that I need to clean up can't be gotten to with my Baldor, so the little air buffer is up next. (The Dremel could work, but everyone locally is out of stitched 1" buffs, so that tool is not going to get much done.)

Here is my complete 4th slide circuit. This is from the back, and the top is on the left.

[the elephant]

I deviated from the plan. Sorry. I got impatient, so THE VALVES ARE ON THE HORN! I only have three of the eight fitted and installed. The fourth "core" brace goes on tomorrow. The four outer "big" braces are going to have some unforseen issues I will have to address. That make take some time. However, even with three braces installed the horn feels very stout and rigid and not at all "noodly". I was shot and had to quit before the fourth one, though. It needs some silver soldering and I need to pick up another tank of acetylene tomorrow. I did not do much cleanup. I will do the fourth brace and then clean up my mess tomorrow.

Here are some pics. Goodight.

Two improved Yamaha braces. These are between the 4th hoop (on the outside) and the 5th branch.


I used another of the improved Yamaha braces between the 4th hoop and the 6th branch. My plans for the two small braces on the bell side fell through once I started the process of fitting the. I could have done it, but there was no real way to get the hex key on either of them, so no bueno. After an hour or so of kicking this around this was what I cme up with. It is, actually, my original idea for a brace in this area.


On the left, swaddled in pink heat bloom, is the same brace in the above photo. BELOW the hoop to the large branch was where I had wanted a brace. I plan on making two very beefy and inflexible braces for this side, but this photo shows what the tuba will have for the time being. On the right you see one of the Instrument Innovtions braces below the slide tube at the top of the dogleg. That will do for now. It is not installed. I took this after I came inside and spent some time looking at options for this location.


And now for the obligatory sexy poser shots to show alignment and the overall look of things…










The time is getting closer to my big horn orchestra gigs in May. Will this be tuba ready to go in time? STAY TUNED!

[prairieboy1]

It looks terrific. So close....

[bloke]

Were it that the valvesets were mounted at that angle and elevation from the factory...

[the elephant]

Agreed. They can be stupid high/forward, like the valves are the tuba's beer gut. I guess that this is not always the case, but most of the time, due to the very inconsistent build quality of the 34X horns: yeah.

I mounted the last of the four inner braces. This one was a cast-iron female dog, man. OMFG…

I had to trim the post-side foot so the barrel had enough space to fully unscrew, and I made it by exactly .5 mm. (I measured it.) These are great braces, but they are five parts, and when all of those parts are this close together soldering everything up is a major PITA.

Also, my new nickel silver rod for the four "big brace" locations arrives tomorrow. I adjusted all tight of the feet for the taper of the top bow and bell to the angles of the slide tubes. I am ready to go.

It is my cats' birthday, so I am done. We celebrate the three little monsters' birthday each year by abandoning them to a can of tuna while we go out to eat. I am hitting the shower as soon as I hit "Submit".

Later!

The last brace of my core "small four" is installed! Now on to the outer "big four"…


The post inside the barrel with the little retainer disc is going to be a bear to clean up. Think sandpaper. Lots of sandpaper.


THE VALVES ARE INSTALLED! There is no friction or gravity or whatever keeping these in place. There are four braces and these suckers are nice and stable. WOO-HOO!!!

[bloke]

tip from a "professional":

Don't drop it.

[York-aholic]

tip from a "professional":

Don't drop it.

If he does, hopefully he ‘knows a guy’...

[the elephant]

Don't drop it.

OMG, this isn't in reference to some recent, tragic event at Blokeplace, is it?

[the elephant]

And now it's time for another episode of "Geek Bench"…

I have a package arriving this afternoon with some nickel silver rod and bar stock. I am sick of ordering (and paying a lot for) things only to have to spend too much time adjusting them to suit my purpose when I can scratch-build the same stuff and have it suit my needs (or fit my space?) from the get go.

Of note, the package was fully tracked, arrived within three days, on time, as promised. This is the first package since September that has not been over a week late due to the virus. Perhaps we are finally turning a *real* corner, here.

I also have a package that went out the door about three hours ago from that nice, little shop in Waldkraiburg. It has five sizes of nickel silver slide tubing. One of the sizes is for the Holton; I came up just a bit short of that specific tube. I want more to be sure I can make my 5th slide and still have some left over in case I decide to change things up. Right now I have a only two very short bits of that in my box, and that makes me nervous…

The others sizes will allow me to re-tube my Kurath F tuba's valve section. The tubes on it are all yellow brass, and they all were trimmed by a professor totally lacking in hacksaw skills. (I won't say who, but some of you know him.) Also, several of the longer slides are bent just enough to make movement very difficult, even when using that nasty, STP-like Selmer Cork Grease. A complete re-tubing will make this tuba more enjoyable to use at work.

(I guess that will be my next build thread.)

[bloke]

Don't drop it.

OMG, this isn't in reference to some recent, tragic event at Blokeplace, is it?

LOL...
A couple of days ago, a playing slide was propped up on a drumstick (lacquer drying) in a vice.
I was USING my American vice to hold a tool so (exercising bad judgment) I clamped the drumstick in a Chinese vise.
With poorly-machined acme threads, the vice "felt like" it was snug against the drumstick.
Of course, the vice failed. I'm stripping off the lacquer, and re-doing the slide rebuild, today.
' just another opportunity to revisit a "good" job, and do it even better.

...buy hey...
THIS more than made up for it:
Yesterday (as an artiste-ic repair triumph) I removed the rotors from a *BB-flat "Mighty Midget",
cleaned off the casing/rotor green poop, successfully got them back in their casings, got them moving in
their casings (a bonus ), and removed a couple of bell creases.
(Heading over to Jackson, TN (freeway philharmonic), in a couple of days, all the Jax-folks - who knew I was there last month
- handed me "stuff" to fix...so all of that "stuff" needs to be ready to toss into the car on Friday.)
- - - - - - - - - - - - - -
*bizarre: basically, a BB-flat valve trombone - rolled up into a little ball...bore size is the same as the smaller/non-compensating/"front" bore on a euphonium

[the elephant]

UPS delivered my package five hours later than projected (but still on the correct day, so I still believe we have rounded a corner of sorts in that regard). I did no work today save for sitting on my butt, awaiting the sound of the happy, brown diesel truck.

I decided to try and get *something* done today, so I measured and cut the posts needed for the four big braces. Everything is ready to go for tomorrow. I can install them in about an hour. The rest of the day will be dedicated to cleanup. I also have to install the valves and see whether they still go up and down. Then the leadpipe.

I'm getting close…

The blue is Sharpie. I marked all four of the foot locations to aid me in bending each one to fit, as well as tilting the socket. The post must be perpendicular to the slide tube, and the bell or top bow section where each of these will live is at the angle created by the taper of the horn. In the background, you can see one of the small braces that back up these big ones. It is very short, so it is hard to misalign. Four of them mean the valve section will pretty much stay where I put it. The big braces are load-bearing, meaning I can pick up the horn by the valves and the bugle will not snap off and hit the floor.


All four locations are differing distances from the slide tubes. I set the valves as deeply into the wrap as I could to try and shorten these four braces. In this case, shorter is much better.

[bloke]

It’s great that there are companies now that make stuff like this for our industry. Of course, it has to be individually cut to fit, but it’s much better than what we had to work with decades ago.

When (the first instruments to feature braces like this) take-apart trombones first became en vogue, I (“we” fesshunul artiste repair guise) had to make all that junk out of pressure couplers.

[the elephant]

Yep. I hope I locate a tailstock for my lathe soon. I can't wait to start teaching myself how to make stuff like this here at the house. Oh, well. One day…

[bloke]

admission:
Once or twice in the not-too-distant past – when someone wanted a detachable-braces rush job (and I didn’t have time to order those things), I have visited the hardware store.

[the elephant]

HEY GANG, IT'S ROOKIE MISTAKE DAY!



So I got the four of the large, difficult-to-assemble, five-piece braces installed. The horn is solid as all get out now. I love it. However, Captain Dipstick here installed the one on the 1st slide too far down. It now partially blocks the leadpipe.

Yeah, I know: pretty dang stupid.

The one upshot is that I had to remove the valve section to take the brace apart and clean the mess. I a happy to report that the valve section comes off without any issues, once you figure out how things have to be done.

Breaktime is over. Back to the salt mines.

This stuff is all so experimental…

This was a compromise. I cut the rod a bit too long because I could not measure the gap accurately. I figured I would adjust it when I installed the thing. My "rookie mistake" was not putting the brace in the wrong place (which happens on occasion to everyone) but was my impatience. I settled on where the brace fit best to avoid adjusting the rod. Had I taken more time I would not have to remove all that jumble of small parts, clean up what I can, THEN adjust the rod length, and repeat all my prior work. At least I have a full tank of acetylene to work with. Things will go much faster now.