Mack Brass 410 CC tuba weight?

[eupho]

How much does a Mack Brass 410 CC tuba weigh? [

[Jperry1466]

About 20 lbs.

[eupho]

Interesting. Someone with one for sale quoted me 33 lbs.

[jtm]

Interesting. Someone with one for sale quoted me 33 lbs.

Maybe that’s with the case.

[the elephant]

The Jinbao 410 weighs about 24 to 25 pounds, max. (The guy who claimed it was 33 pounds was wrong.) The current version of the 186 weighs around 22.5 lbs. The Chinese copy is about 24 to 32 ounces heavier. [Another comparison: my "classic" 186 weighs about 18.5 pounds. My four-valved Alexander 163 weighed only 17 pounds. I agree that the 33-pound estimate *had* to include the case, as was pointed out above by John.]

[eupho]

The seller says it is 50 lbs with case. I find that hard to comprehend.

[Stryk]

IT IS THICK AND HEAVY! At least mine is. (Not Mack, but M&M - same horn, cooler logo)

[the elephant]

The seller says it is 50 lbs with case. I find that hard to comprehend.

He is smoking something. The case is styrofoam with a paper-thin cloth covering. It weighs about 10 pounds, empty. It sounds like he wants to gouge on shipping based on a fantasy weight. If he can't correct that I would not buy this. Just get a new one from Tom, who does not try to pull stuff like this.

[the elephant]

The seller might be claiming the tuba and case are 33 pounds (which is off by a few pounds to the heavy side, but close) and the 50-pound claim might be for the horn, case, AND the shipping container/packing filler. THAT would be about 50 pounds.

Remember that it is a copy of a Miraphone 186, which is NOT a big tuba at all, and the heavier modern version is about 22.5 pounds. The thicker, heavier Chinese copy is only about 1.5 to 2 pounds more. Adding 32 ounces of brass to the tubing of a tuba is a LOT for a horn in this size category. I completely retubed my Holton 345's valve section using much thinner, lighter tubing, and in the end, it lost less than a pound of weight. Thinning out the bugle with identical bell and bows (theoretical, of course) would probably shed another pound and a half. So if a thinner, lighter Holton 345 loses about 2.5 pounds I shudder to imagine what would have to be done to the 186 design for the weight to balloon up from 22.5 pounds to 33 (or 50????)…

[royjohn]

I just weighed my 410, formerly owned by the elephant, and it weighs 21.4 lbs. I have a well calibrated doctor's scale with the sliding weights and weighed myself and then me and the tuba...assuming I got the sliding weights all into the right notches, that should be a pretty accurate weight. This is sans mouthpiece and possibly I didn't get all the water out when I played an hour ago, but 21 and change should be pretty close. By the way, this is the model with the gold brass bell, so the yellow brass bell model may have a slightly different weight. I believe Wade bought this in 2015 or 2016...he changed out the ball and socket linkages, but that's a trivial amount of weight.

Prolly a lot more than you wanted to know, right? So 21.4 lbs...

royjohn, world's oldest tuba newbie

[the elephant]

THANK YOU!

I must have written down the weight incorrectly. I think it is 1.5 lbs heavier than my classic 186 and NOT the heavier, modern 186. Thanks for the correction/clarification. But that means it is most definitely NOT a thirty-three-pound tuba!

ATTENTION, CITIZENS OF THE PLANET EARTH: PAY NO ATTENTION TO ME. I AM AN IDIOT.

[bloke]

sidebar:

A thin tuba is not necessarily a "cheap" tuba.

It's FAR easier to make (most parts of) thick tubas.

almost a non sequitur:

FatBastard weighs 27 lbs. Considering its size, the valveset bore, and five rotors, (plus the bow caps being considerably thicker than typical Miraphone bow caps), I judge that to be remarkably light. That having been said, in it's "MIRAPHONE" Jakob Winter case, it's remarkably heavy.

[Jperry1466]

Dug out the luggage scale today (just got back from a cruise), and it says the 410 (sans case and mpc) weighs 24 lbs. It is the laquer all yellow brass model. Of course, the scale is for making sure of luggage weight for a flight, so I don't know how exact it is.

[the elephant]

See, that is how mine weighed out for me, but Roy says it is lighter. Perhaps he has a more accurate scale than you or I do? I thought my 410 was just a tad under 24 pounds, but he is weighing the horn and getting three pounds less than you or I did.

Now we can't trust scales, either.

[MikeMason]

Speaking of the miraclone, anyone got a recent one who has played the older ones? Wonder if any changes over the years. After a set back 13 years ago, I sold my Thor and pt9 and played one for a couple years. Very adequate tuba and really outstanding for the money. I know Wade spent some time with and did some mods on one a while back,as mentioned in this thread by its new owner. College kids should probably just start here and pass them around as and if they upgrade. If my finances catastrophically crashed tomorrow , I’d do the same again.

[arpthark]

Speaking of the miraclone, anyone got a recent one who has played the older ones? Wonder if any changes over the years. After a set back 13 years ago, I sold my Thor and pt9 and played one for a couple years. Very adequate tuba and really outstanding for the money. I know Wade spent some time with and did some mods on one a while back,as mentioned in this thread by its new owner. College kids should probably just start here and pass them around as and if they upgrade. If my finances catastrophically crashed tomorrow , I’d do the same again.

I had one from circa 2014 (Tuba Exchange), a Mack from around 2016, and currently have one from 2019 (Dillon). I flipped the first one, sold the second one to one of my students, and am currently using the Dillon 410.

The 2014 TE and I believe the Mack had the old-style Miraphone curved fifth valve lever and the newer one has the modern-style bar, which I prefer.

The linkages are noticeably better. Not German quality but decent. The older one I had would constantly rattle, get loose, stripped some screws, etc. The QA seems to have improved quite a bit.

The rotor surface edges are s-h-a-r-p. I sliced my thumb disassembling my newer model 410.

Intonation has been excellent in all models I've played. It's a great tuba.

[royjohn]

Interesting that we're getting different weights...the doctor's scale with weights (it's a Health-o-Meter) like in the doc's office should be pretty accurate once it is zero'ed out, which I do with the calibrating bar which has it's own small weight. There's even a sight level to get the bar absolutely level. I worried that something went wrong holding that big tuba while on the scale, so I tried again using my bathroom scale, one of those glass digital models with the four pressure feet. Using that I get 21.2 lbs, so I think I'm probably about right for this particular tuba, since that scale measures in increments of 0.2 lbs. Maybe they vary some from tuba to tuba in the manufacturing runs and from year to year.

royjohn, tuba newbie