It was *okay* at that time, with a crappy low register and several other things I hated, but I saw the potential, and eventually, I was able to bring out much of that potential to make a tuba I am very fond of, notwithstanding all the hair I pulled out getting it to where it is. If I did not like it I would sell or trade it. A nice, shiny Chinese knockoff is easily within reach if I want to go that direction, but I most likely won't. (Never say "never" because I have yet to play any of the new wonderphones. I will say that I did not think that the Yamayorks I have played were worth the difference in price between what I have and what $40,000+++ and a very long wait get you. So maybe one of those Chinese BATs is in my future.
Again, I doubt it.
I do not like "cimbassi" enough to ever want one. I might *build* one for fun, but I would most likely sell it once it was finished. (But is anything *I* have ever built truly "finished"?) I *do* however, need a smaller F tuba (like a tenor tuba for some folks) to go with my big F, which is pretty much a quintet instrument. So I do need and want this tuba. Well, maybe not *this* specific one, but an improved 621. (Maybe the Bobo Yamaha?) Anyway, this tuba plays with a really great tone and the pitch is dead on for me. I have to fart around with valves to see what the twisties do to the pitch, so those .656" Olds rotors might get used temporarily to see how decent/disappointing this tuba will be.
Now that the clouds are clearing out with the Kurath levers, I sort of want to put individual rotors where they actually need to go, rather than in a line all next to one another. People do not do this because it would be impossible to actually use the valves. But that is the fun in this for me: I don't really care about the outcome so much as the information I learn along the way. It is not my business, but my much-beloved hobby. Doing straight-up day-to-day repair work — for me — is similar to working in a cubicle. I hate it. It is why I stopped doing it in the first place. A decade of 9-to-5 burned me out for good.
I prefer this work to be my release from the drudgery of playing all the time. So I only do it when I want to. When I get bored I put it aside. Right now, though, I am doing massive work on one of my main horns, so I *have* to do it — and I'm burning out. I am discussing this 182 as a direct result of this in an attempt to relight the fire with the Kurath. I mean, I honestly thought that when I perpetrated this invasion I was certain that it would be over in just three days. I did not expect this to turn into a full-scale war. It was supposed to be a special
military tuba-building operation.
