POLL ADDED !!! - Holton BB-345 twin-spin (first actual picture on p.2)

[the elephant]

Hijacking — again — because it is both okay and encouraged here…

Dr. Spock self-esteem-means-everything "baby" book

This book helped to ruin not only a generation of kids, but a generation of parents who wanted to remain kids by abdicating responsibility and becoming their kids' "friend" rather than the person who trains, teaches, and is an example to them. All hail, Dr. Spock. All hail, divorce. All hail, group therapy. All hail, our Dark Lord Valium. All hail the 1970s.

Wait, was that political? Was that satire? Or was that just a bit of gas?

[bloke]

Mrs. bloke went off to the store - instead of finishing two saxophone re-pad jobs...so I took that as permission to get this bell done (was - candidly - pretty sh!tty, which prompted me to be concerned, re: my ability to un-sh!tty it)...but it was done (start-to-finish) BEFORE LUNCH...so I WILL work on Mississippi sousaphones AFTER lunch.

It's very straight and round...Don't confuse buffing smears with distortions.

To the owner:
The gang symbols were very shallow, and have been buffed out.
Everything else was ONLY buffed enough to shine it up...all scratches (other than my own light tool marks) remain.

@the elephant The top bow is huge in my hands, but - in the picture of the entire bugle - it really appears "proportional" and "not-as-large-as-some"...yes?

[the elephant]

Mine (in comparison) looks way out of proportion, but it was cut to CC (ahem) so the whole set of branches looks F'ed up to me. Taking that into consideration, and having a 2165 to compare side-by-side) my top bow would have looked like an abomination from the factory, regardless, at the bend toward the bell. It is way too fat. I have considered making a new one to fool around with, but that is unlikely to happen.

This one looks very good *and* proportional now. Nice work. That bottom bow looks just as lost, directionally, on the small side as my cut one does. Wouldn't it be great to find the mandrels and see if we could make better/more accurate ones? (Okay, maybe not "great" but at least interesting.)

Also, I did not use my dent machine ("metal smoother" or "tubing iron" would be better names, I think) on my Holton. Perhaps someday I will want to take the bugle apart and do the work properly, but that day will likely be after I have died and the horn is in the hand of its future owner — because I ain't doing that crap!

[tubaing]

Looks great! Curious: is everything dry-fit right now or soldered together? I don't see any bell to top bow braces. And i assume you didnt address the crack the bell yet, but am sure that you found it.

I believe you told me the first thing you do to the bell was get the rim round and level?

[bloke]

bottom bow and bell are not soldered.
They need to be sight-aligned about fifteen or twenty times, before I've convinced myself that they are just where they belong.
I'm not fixing that little crack until I'm convinced that I'm completely done messing with the bell.

The bell rim had one bent-inward (not up/down, but - again - INWARD) spot, which I fixed with a regular-ol' claw hammer...WHAM !!! (yes, really).

All of the Holton 345 bottom bows I've dealt with have been (curvature-wise) "in a hurry" - on the small side (just about identical).
Were that addressed (for the sake of looks...??) something else would surely need to be shortened - to compensate.
We tend to like "pretty/symmetrical", but I doubt that acoustics and playing characteristics much care.
@the elephant I forgot my mandrel... (Did you play your gig, yet, and did you use the Holton?)
also...
Several years ago, I did some repair work on a FACTORY CC-345 for a retired guy (with a bad ticker) down near Baton Rogue named Clark W. Giffin.
Per typical, when he had it straightened out (decades ago) and re-lacquered, the dolts at the "overhaul shop" (did he tell me: "in Texas"...??) tossed the bottom bow cap in the trash (just as was done with this one that I'm currently working to bring back to as-good-as-can-be...I hate "restore" just about as much as I hate "tweak").
Otherwise, though, it was a factory C. I heard that he passed. I wonder where that tuba ended up? (I have no jones for it, just fwiw...I've never been able to get the "WHUMP!" out of a CC-345 that I can coax from a really good BB-345.)

[the elephant]

Did you play your gig, yet, and did you use the Holton?

I finished my season tonight. I played the 345 services, except for last night. I had been in hospital from Tuesday after lunch through Friday almost suppertime. I could not make that gig, and honestly, I felt like crap and was in pain. Richard Perry from USM drove up to read the gig. (It was an easy one, with a few fun things. My trip to the ER did not throw him to the wolves, thankfully.) What I did on the 345 pleased everyone, especially me. The horn still needs some dialing in, and I have more stuff to do to complete it. Then there is cleanup and possible lacquer…

Tonight I managed to play a quintet/percussion/piano/grand chorus gig that had some fun bits. I did that on the 186. I love that tuba, too.

I am fortunate to have two instruments of this quality to use at work. I have usually had to use whatever I could afford, and that has not always been fun. I can make most tubas do what I need at a level my employer likes, whether the horn is good or bad; this pair, though, really makes me happy. They make playing a pleasure, again.

[the elephant]

.

[York-aholic]

They make playing a pleasure, again.

Can’t ask for more than that.



Well, you can but let’s not get out of control here...

[bloke]

yeah...
Today is Mississippi sousaphones and mellophones day, or else I’m in trouble with Mrs. bloke.

bloke “ Someday, I’ll get a job - so that I have weekends off.”

[York-aholic]

bloke “ Someday, I’ll get a job - so that I have weekends off.”

You don’t want weekends off.

People with too much time off get themselves into all kinds of trouble.

[bloke]

bloke “ Someday, I’ll get a job - so that I have weekends off.”

You don’t want weekends off.

People with too much time off get themselves into all kinds of trouble.

I get into trouble simply by being too transparent, as well as by making blunt “The emperor has no clothes“ types of statements.

[York-aholic]

I get into trouble simply by being too transparent, as well as by making blunt “The emperor has no clothes“ types of statements.

Yes, now imagine what would happen if you had some free time to to expose the emperor's nakedness?

[York-aholic]

Hijacking because it seems to be the thing to do in this community…

It IS do-able. It just requires attention to detail and control.

Listen to him. This can be done for you by a competent tech, but in a lot of cases, you will have to nearly beg them. This takes some time and a lot of concentration that could be used to knock out one or two customer instruments. Some very good techs would just say no, that you should just ferrule it together. That is the easy way, but that looks like a$$ and really is for school horns that will end up crushed in the same spot in another year or two. But it can be done.

I work in a freaking carport and could do that. In a real

Do what Joe recommended. It works and will look much better in the end.

All true. It was a school instrument and a basket case. Otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to afford it. A York 702 I believe (3 fa valves). The top bow and two next smaller bows were cut and ‘ferruled’, one with tubing, 2 with strips of brass wound around. All three joints leaked. The valves were so worn you could visually discern horizontal movement.

The two largest bows were brazed back together a year or two ago. Anderson’s had stopped rebuilding valve sets. I acquired a 4v YM valve set from a halfway decent guy ( ) and I’ve been enjoying it ever since. It is my favorite horn to play.

On the right (silver) next to its grandpa (York 736)

1C8E5F53-1F5E-4DCF-8459-0DB2877EBD55.jpeg (30.45 KiB) Viewed 1277 times

[bloke]

Tubas which I automatically scroll past on flea-bay are

- cracked-bell
- cut bows
- worn valves (as that remedy has become cost-prohibitive)
- jimbo

UNLESS [1] there are PARTS on them that are useful to me, and [2] they're cheaper-than-dirt...but I seem to have quite a few "parts", so...

There are SO MANY things stored here (which need to be brought up to "nice" and sold) that Mrs. bloke will even drill me when there are some no-brainer things offered to us.

I am - ACTUALLY - chipping away at them (albeit slowing). Though you've not seen much of it, fairly soon there will be a dazzling BB-345 offered up for sale...and (of ALL the old funky 186's that are laying around, here...) as some may have noticed, I got the MOST-CHALLENGING-TO-FIX-UP one slicked out and sold (that hybrid "shorty" one, which also required complete refinishing and a coat of clear). Also, a now-nice 2341 recently disappeared from here, so...

[Yorkboy]

The gang symbols were very shallow, and have been buffed out.

?

[tubaing]

The gang symbols were very shallow, and have been buffed out.

?

Hard to tell in the pics, but someone probably took a paperclip and scratched an "X" through "Holton" and scratched in "GREEN"

[bloke]

This isn't going to excite @tubaing all that much, but I worked on rounding (am satisfied that I got it basically round, but it now needs RE-smoothing) the OTHER BB-345 tuba's bottom bow, today.

This coming week, I'm going to assemble 345 #2 to the same stage as 345 #1 (tubaing's) - over which I've been toiling.

Just now (as well as Friday), I worked on addressing several issues (parts/condition issues/etc.) related to the valveset belonging to 345 #1.

The lower #4 slide alignment was atrocious, but was merely related to an absurdly-hurried original assembly job, and I was able to undo some interior "circuitry" and (simply) move it over (while keeping it's brace in the same spot...never mind...not worth pictures...too much minutia).

[Yorkboy]

The lower #4 slide alignment was atrocious, but was merely related to an absurdly-hurried original assembly job

I had a Holton 105 (same bugle, 6/4 3 valve front-action detachable recording bell) where the 3rd valve bottom crook alignment, factory original, I kid you not, was off by about a quarter inch (probably more). It was amazing that 1) the lower slide even came out and went in, and 2) that it even left the factory like that.

[bloke]

The lower #4 slide is was in atrocious (rotten/patched) condition.
I asked Christian Niedermayer (Miraphone boss) if he would supply me with some thinwall c. 20+mm bore annealed yellow brass tubing (so that I could bend a new tuning slide bow for this tuba, and (he's prince) he offered to fabricate the bow for me. I supplied him with the inner span measurement...

("Overhaul shops" - which, again, seem to be a thing of the past, which I view as "a good thing") would sometimes rely on files and sandpaper to affect "dent removal" from slide bows.)
...File the $h!t out of it...WHOOPS...There's now a CRACK, so let's patch it... = "STUCK-ON-STUPID"

[Yorkboy]

The gang symbols were very shallow, and have been buffed out.

?

Hard to tell in the pics, but someone probably took a paperclip and scratched an "X" through "Holton" and scratched in "GREEN"

Ah, Gang Green?