Holton 345 Redux

[the elephant]

Nope. It is the bell. It would do it on occasion back years ago, but the rim was bent some and after I tried to straighten it (more to go, it is a tough SOB) the buzzing started. Finger pressure in one spot stops it. After I whang that thing back into being flat I will then probably have to run solder into that area to get it to stop. I am not sure what else there is to do. I might look at trying to roll the rim more tightly right there, but I do not know what tool will help with that, other than a hooked burnisher…

[bloke]

I see...

My F tuba used to do that stuff after it slid off of a church pew years ago…and - with a kranz – the stopping of it was made all the more complicated.
I began a complete restoration of the F tuba a couple of years ago… The bell flair is perfect, and perfectly straight…and not buzzing…so I’ve REALLY been trying to be an “adult” - with that instrument - ever since.
I am hesitant to complete that restoration, because the nickel-brass bow caps are so incredibly thin, it scares me to remove them.
I have actually been considering experimenting with a technique whereby I would heat the solder under those caps (at least: the upper one) while
smoothing it with magnet techniques…as there actually are not any dents in the instrument up there, but only solder imprints remaining.

The original factory lacquer - sprayed on in the communist East Germany factory in the early 1980s - was akin to the quality of rattle can lacquer…and it was coming off in a little bits and embedding itself in my (1980s vintage) polyester trousers.
Daniel Perantoni told me that the old factory had a dirt floor.

[the elephant]

Current status after some "testing" — The buzz in the rim is the same one that has always been an intermittent issue. In the past, it would buzz LOUDLY on Db above the staff, but only very infrequently on other notes. Now it seems to like to make noise on top space G, but it is only an annoyance to me and not something to worry about being called out for on stage.

Good. Good.

There were three aspects to this new (and worrisome) buzz. A lot of it turned out to be sympathetic vibrations in my shop space. Oddly enough, the Kurath F and Miraphone CC did not have the intensity to make this junky room start making noise. In a house a BAT and a 186 sound rather similar. To a human ear, there is a definite difference in the depth of tone, but you cannot really appreciate the differences in these horns in such a small space. But all the unsecured little bits of metal and plastic only feel the intensity of the wave. And hoo-boy, that room that normally sounds *okay* as a space for practicing or testing tubas becomes quite noisy when the Holton is played.

Wow.

So I moved into my bedroom, which I have worked on for years to get rid of sources of sympathetic vibrations because that is where I do the bulk of my work at home. (My cats took over my studio, unfortunately. I am not going to do hours of deep breathing when a cat box is sharing the space. The clay dust causes medical issues. Oh, and the sight odor of piss is a bit of a turnoff, too.)

The real culprit in all of this is my new leadpipe, which was poorly bent by yours truly. I have another on the way. This one plays really well, but the curvature that worked out so well is now a problem after I trimmed 3/8" off the large end. It now touches the bell between the centerline detachable brace and the receiver detachable brace. If I insert a thin strip of cardboard 90% of the remaining buzz goes away, leaving me with just the original buzz, which I can repair.

So that is good news.

I will use the horn on my upcoming concerts and rehearsals but will not adust the leadpipe fit for fear of screwing it up, forcing me to use a different horn for these services. I will use it as it, bend a new one that fits a bit better, and then I will re-anneal, re-fill, and then re-bend this one until I am happy with it. THEN I will have two leadpipes and I can monkey around with the taper in the first six inches or so without fear. I also did some nice work to the leadpipe I bent for this tuba back in 2012, and I plan to anneal and fill it at the same time and then see whether I can make it work, too.

This all should be a real barrel of laughs (he says with absolutely zero sincerity)…

After my gig on the rebuilt 186 yesterday I am in love with that honey of a tuba. I think that I might have a similar relationship with this one, once it is finished. I spent some time playing it this afternoon and it really is improved from its last form, and GREATLY improved over how it played (and was constructed) when I got it in 2007.

I will post some pics once the 5th valve section has been laid out and built. Oh, and that blue painter's tape over the MTS water key hole needs to be addressed, too. I keep forgetting that bit.

[the elephant]

Okay, SCREW the USPS. So I have been grousing about my missing package from Miraphone (shipped on 4/7 and lost in Miami since 4/28). I have not been working on my Holton 345 because I *need* stuff in that dang box!

Tonight I gave up and started working again, cutting up stuff I wanted to keep. Eventually, I will get my needed tubing, and I need this tuba fully functional in ten days. So I am undoing some work in order to make some corrections that will allow me to move on.

Firstly, the 5th valve delete tube (that I call the "dead tube") is no longer amongst the living. It has been chopped up to replace the two tubes on the 5th valve assembly. One of them picked up a ding and the other was slightly too short. I did not want to trim the other three tubes for that slide so that all four lined up nicely, so having a chance to cut a new one was nice.

At no point was this tube-valve-tube assembly perfectly straight. It had been eyeballed, but the valve ports are not exactly lined up. (What I need this valve to do is not something that is designed into rotary valves, and I have built and then dumped three other valves because the entry/exit ports were too far off of plumb to be of any use for my design. This Miraphone valve is almost perfect, by far the best one I have tried to use for this, and tonight I was finally able to line everything up very straight. I am pleased with the results after all my fussing over this.

Here are some pics…

This sucker is waaaaay down in the bowels of the horn. If this were a ship the 5th valve would be installed in the bilges.


Everything lines up nicely and looks logical. There are no weird bits any longer. Bye-bye, Bob Rusk. This tuba is now a Rackley-cut horn. BAHAHAHA!!! Okay, whatever…




Here it is from the rear. Even as deeply placed as this valve is, there is still a long way to go to get the two tubes from the valve out far enough to the backside of the horn to allow for a usable slide. Yikes! The wrap of the Holton 345 bugle is very deeply dished.

[York-aholic]

Re: bell buzz.

I think I remember reading about a French horn bell that buzzed and they melted beeswax at the offending spot. A bit strange/non permanent to my mind, but might be an option.

[bisontuba]

Re: bell buzz.

I think I remember reading about a French horn bell that buzzed and they melted beeswax at the offending spot. A bit strange/non permanent to my mind, but might be an option.

Years back, I had a Mirafone that had a buzz on the kranz. Bob Pallansch told me to get a bar of soap and rub it around the brand...no more buzz. And if it got wet and buzzed again, rub the soap bar against it. Instant fix...

[the elephant]

Thanks, guys.

I have tried both, as well as packing with grease and oils, etc. This buzz is right at the seam where the steel wire ends come together. Miraphone does not tack weld the steel wire into a hoop but leaves the ends free. (They don't even use steel anymore, but what looks to be nickel wire.)

I have seen really old Holtons (and Yorks) with wires that were solid hoops, and if they get damaged at the right place they can snap. If you fix the damaged area the rim bead can become a tiny bit loose and the buzz can be really bad. I suspect that this is what happened to my bell.

I will first try to localized the buzz. I know where it is, within a six inch long run. If I can zero in on run that is about two inches long I can try to tighten up the bead's wrap. I have done this five or six times over the years with great success. The issue is that it can be difficult to identify the crack's location.

I will figure this one out, but I do not want a temporary fix. After all this work I want this issue sorted permanently.

[bloke]

If it were mine, and I absolutely KNEW that the ends of the steel hoop were vibrating against each other, my "permanent" fix would be to drill a small hole precisely where they meet into the brass rim - on the underside (a hole that would be "just" larger than a hypodermic through which some reliable adhesive could be injected - and that won't be "just any adhesive"), and (well...) inject a flow-able adhesive inside the rim between/around the two ends of the steel hoop. Attempting to coax solder to flow into such a hole would accomplish little more than making a mess of things, I would predict.

[dp]

Thanks, guys.
I have tried both, as well as packing with grease and oils, etc. This buzz is right at the seam where the steel wire ends come together. Miraphone does not tack weld the steel wire into a hoop but leaves the ends free. (They don't even use steel anymore, but what looks to be nickel wire.)
I have seen really old Holtons (and Yorks) with wires that were solid hoops, and if they get damaged at the right place they can snap. If you fix the damaged area the rim bead can become a tiny bit loose and the buzz can be really bad. I suspect that this is what happened to my bell.
I will first try to localized the buzz. I know where it is, within a six inch long run. If I can zero in on run that is about two inches long I can try to tighten up the bead's wrap. I have done this five or six times over the years with great success. The issue is that it can be difficult to identify the crack's location.
I will figure this one out, but I do not want a temporary fix. After all this work I want this issue sorted permanently.

Suggestion: try a couple wooden clothespins for zeroing in on that bell rim buzz

[the elephant]

Today I mapped out, measured and cut the parts for my 5th slide circuit. As depicted below, the slide assembly needs to lose about 1.25" from both leg sets. This is a very rough set of parts. I made one runner from the valve to the slide and a two-piece runner with a narrow ferrule from the valve to the slide (that turns the tubes 90º so the slide is oriented correctly). The take the slide from the valve ports to where the slide assembly (crook, two ferrules, two each inner and outer legs). The final length will be determined and the slide itself will be adjusted. Once all that fits well and is the length I want I will do a final alignment check and add the brace between the two outer legs. Once the slide circuit has been soldered to the valve 5th valve unit I will have to install it and then cut and install two of my King detachable braces to hold the slide still. I might install two on one side, one on each side, or two on each side. It depends on how stable the slide feels within the bugle.

Problem: The tenon from the 6th branch is a half of an inch too long to allow me to remove the valve from within the inner wrap of the tuba. It cannot be done as things stand. I will trim the tenon and install a spacer inside the shorter, top tube of the 5th valve unit. This will make everything work fine. If the slide is routed to avoid this issue it will be nearly touching the bottom caps of the piston section and the slide will likely not be removable from the outer legs for the same reason: clearance.

Tomorrow I will start adjusting all the parts so that they line up and fit the way I want and then solder it all together. Then I can remove that 6th branch tenon, cut it, and cut a new spacer. (This is a gap-free section, so I can't just stick the cut-off into the valve tube because the kerf of the Dremel head eats about 2 mm of length, leaving a big gap. So, a little additional fun to fix that will be needed.

The casing is installed to the 6th branch tenon (that has to be trimmed) and held in alignment with a brace to 5th branch. (It is also braced against accidental rotation on the tenon to a slide tube on the valve section.


When I bumped the piston section bore by a half millimeter (so I could use Miraphone parts) I also bumped the 5th bore. The piston section is now 19.5 mm — it was 19 mm — and the 5th had been 21 mm and is now 21.26, so all these nice, new Miraphone parts are from the updated 190 or from the 191 (.835") and should not make life more difficult for me.

This is how it fits within the frame of the inner branches on the backside of the tuba.


Looking through where the piston section will live.


Here is the (mostly) complete, removable 5th valve section that can be replaced with a simple, straight tube.


Another view…


This is one of the braces on the valve unit. It is the one to the bugle. (The "stump" you see to the side is to the valve section.) The horrors this little bugger caused me were due to five parts to be soldered were FREAKING CLOSE TOGETHER and I am out of Heat Fence. I had to wire the snot out of this assembly and solder and clean one bit at a time, as the design of that little barrel and the retainer on the post kept flowing solder into the barrel, causing everything to freeze together. It took me several tries to get it together where it looks nice, functions correctly, and is perfectly aligned. NEVER AGAIN will I use one of these complex little guys when it has to be *this* short. Nope.


This is with the barrel fully extended, as when the brace is assembled and fully tightened. It is SHORT!


In future I will most certainly silver solder that little disc on the end of the post so that it won't shift around when the other stuff is heated. I think this might make this process much easier. If I can nail the length I might silver solder the post to the socket, too. (Not sure about this. It would be a mess, too.) Having the brace fully assembled would make soldering the foot to the horn easy.

[the elephant]

The 5th valve section is now built. I had to trim and adjust some things and change out the little ferrule for a normal length one, and I had to adjust the angles of some tube ends and the tube angles themselves. Lots of fun, little details. Ugh. It is finished. If I dislike it I can easily modify it at any time BECAUSE IT COMES OFF AND THE HORN CAN BE PLAYED WITHOUT IT.

Goody for me.

I have to trim the tenon on the 6th branch still. (I cannot install this assembly because of the situation described in my previous post.) I have to add between two and four rotation-fixing braces. I have to install the lever. I have to make the linkage.

Here is where this is as of 1:00 today.

[York-aholic]

Forward progress, nice to see, good work Sir!

[bloke]

I’m pretty sure that’s a picture of a oneba.

[the elephant]

WARNING: THE FOLLOWING POST CONTAINS COMPLAINTS ABOUT THE USPS, FOLLOWED BY STUFF THAT NO ONE IN THEIR RIGHT MIND COULD EVER CARE ABOUT. But it is important to *me* so here it is. You have been warned…
_______________________________

After the complete failure of the USPS I will be looking at much more costly international shipping.

1. Package was never scanned in upon arrival at US Customs. This was the fault of the USPS. Customs had NO RECORD of ever having received the package. The final tracking comment was from USPS to declare that the package was being prepared for handoff to USCBP. Customs says they never got it. I cannot work around USCBP, but I *can* choose a better shipping carrier and method. (To be fair: I have thus far only ever asked for whatever Miraphone normally uses.)

2. No one at Customs scanned in my package.

3. No one at USPS scanned it in 48 hours later when they received it.

4. No one at the USPS Miami Regional Center scanned it in when it arrived from USPS Miami ISC/US Customs.

5. Some USPS dipistick then placed my package on board the world's slowest air freighter to SEATTLE (Dan, did you see my missing package?) The package disappeared from the system 100% at this point. The box traveled all the way from Miami to Seattle. It seems to have stuck around there to enjoy the ever-present rain and a few coffees.

6. After two weeks in Seattle it slowly wended the 2,500 miles back to that bastion of 19th Century backwardness called Mississippi.

7. It just arrived. Thankfully, after all that handling and mishandling the contents are undamaged. It left Miraphone's shipping dock on April 4th and arrived in Yazoo City 50 days later. Boy, what fun stories it could probably tell if it could talk.

Anyway, I got my stinking box of German-drawn nickel silver tubing. Finally. I have never had a package just disappear like this, except for when Greyhound GPX lost my Mack 410 for about a month. I have had packages be tracked but sent to the wrong place. I have had packages that were never scanned in but that arrived more or less on time. I have had packages destroyed and replaced (eh, mostly) or refunded. I have never had an expensive parcel simply disappear from US Customs.

If you have read my silly posts for any length of time you know my personal mantra is, "Shipping sucks. Deliver or pick up important stuff personally whenever practicable." Of course, swimming to the land of our beloved "Bavarian Beer Girls" isn't a very good option. But if a package needs to be here by a certain date and it is important enough, I will now request 2nd Day Air or something similar, if available. Lesson learned.

What did I get this time?

I plan on re-tubing my Kurath F tuba as all the slide tubing is thin and yellow brass. Since 1987 the long tubes have become bent and proper alignment is difficult. After hours of work with some excellent tools I still have two slides that "grind" and cannot be aligned. A previous owner also attacked the 1st slide with a poorly guided hacksaw. (I have had three people tell me that this was done by "MrP" himself, with a directive to old WK to make them all that length from the on. (This was an early example of this horn.) I still have not confirmed that this is, indeed, the same instrument, but *someone* gave this tuba a real going over with that saw. Anyway, it looks pretty amateurish and needs to be fixed.

Now I have some nice, Miraphone nickel silver tubes of the correct sizes to replace all inner and outer slide tubes.

Also, I purchased some other tubes to use on the Holton (some nice finishing touches!) and I also purchased one of the 186 5th slide doglegs, as these have proven to be invaluable to have on hand. Most every order I make in future from them will have one of these tossed in just because. I will be stocking up on several other very handy parts for future projects that will use Miraphone valves. These guys make some great parts!

Ginger, my assistant, inspects all foreign packages for interesting smells…


This tubing (and the dogleg) cost about $169 (after a 4% discount because I pay my bills immediately) and the shipping is now $65 for the USPS Super-Deluxe Package Vacation Deal. These are 500 mm (min) lengths, except for the two jumbo fat boys, which are sold in 250 mm lengths. The largest one is fat enough (24.5 mm with a very thick wall) that it could be used as a bun-length sausage carrying device. Note that the dogleg fits a 186. The smaller stuff is for 184/185 horns, and the big stuff comes from 191 and other large bore horn main tuning slides.

[Tubajug]

That was quite a trip!

I'm glad it arrived (finally). I like that your Kurath and Holton will having matching valve sections!

[the elephant]

I like that your Kurath and Holton will having matching valve sections!

Kurath, Holton AND Miraphone. Keep in mind that all these parts are from Miraphone too. Kinda cool…

[Tubajug]

I like that your Kurath and Holton will having matching valve sections!

Kurath, Holton AND Miraphone. Keep in mind that all these parts are from Miraphone too. Kinda cool…

I anxiously await the family photo!

[bloke]

I don’t know the Kurath specs, offhand. Is the bore size of that instrument roughly the same as with the Miraphone model 80 F and model 84 B-flat and C ?

[the elephant]

1/2/3 — 18 mm
4 — 19 mm
5 — 21 mm
MTS — 21 and 24 mm (Uf-da! 24 mm is HUGE!)

This was prior to his releasing the Rotax on the Willson 3200 FA-5. The Kurath is the immediate predecessor of that tuba. This one was made in 1987. Besides the Meinlschmidt rotor on 5th and the Nirschl piston set, the two horns are identical.

[the elephant]

Time for a nerdgasm…

Here are nine of the slide tubing sizes Miraphone uses for tubas. I think there may be one larger and two smaller, but I have not confirmed this. They continue like this, contiguously, down through trumpet and horn sizes.

I think this is a very interesting photo. The three marked with red are the only tube sizes used on the 186. (Yes, they are still the same .769" bore tubas they have always been. I have the clearly marked tags and my own measurements to back that up. The .772" claim is bogus if you measure the bore correctly. This is just "number massaging" to make better ad copy, since in our world bigger is perceived as more desirable by many. It is sad because it is completely unnecessary. Whatever…

I have the OD numbers, too, as well as discrete part numbers. PM me if you need something and I can give you the contact person and the ordering info.

Just thought I would share this image as it would be fairly interesting to some here…