cutting Fat Bastard down to size (OK. I'm probably -??- done posting to this thread.)

[bloke]

referring back to this (video below),

I added a water key to the #3 circuit, but - now that I've added it - there hardly ever seems to be any water to empty.
I believe I've discovered why:
I installed the water key and this device at the same time.
Now that I'm using this device to tune bottom-of-the-staff F-sharp, I believe I might (??) be shooting any small amounts of collecting water out the rotor vent hole.

[arpthark]

Is the square mechanism comfortable on your wrist?

[bloke]

Is the square mechanism comfortable on your wrist?

All I feel is the 1/4" diameter round bar...The corners don't touch my wrist.


Any sort of wide surface would have added more weight and (likely) drag against my wrist.
It's hollow tubing - but just thick enough to be substantial enough, btw.

MOST OF THE TIME, I've discovered/determined that less = more, and that many musical instrument devices (certainly those absurd main slide things on euphoniums, as a set of examples) are over-built...oh yeah: and "tuning slide speed" is usually achieved via loose fit (ie. leaky tubing).

[bloke]

Other than shining up and lacquering some of the things I've changed (as I've already done that to some changed things), I've just about reached the end of my Fat Bastard customization punch list. I'm thinking that this thread is closed, unless anyone has questions about any of this long/boring stuff and/or if there's some epilogue, addition, or addendum (three words I lernt in kolij).

After replacing a couple of flawed/previously-damaged (whatever was causing them to not work smoothly) o.e.m. #4 circuit outside slide tubes and precision-aligning the entire circuit, I did a minor reconfig of the inside slides.

[ A ] upper #4 slide was SIGNIFICANTLY elongated (no reason in particular, other than - if I ever think of some application for needing to pull that slide farther, the length will be available, and - if I ever decide to pull it a few inches - there will still be a few inches of tubing inserted, which eliminates the prospect of accidentally pulling the slide all the way out).

[ B ] I shortened the shorter side (of the intermediate slide by about 1-1/2 inches (allowing room for those new longer upper tubes, and defining the interior bore gap to "as little as practically possible", when the intermediate slide it pulled out to the "in-tune" spot.

[ C ] In the REALLY LONG outside slide tube, I installed a bore spacer to fill in the bore gap between the bottom #4 slide and the upper #4 slide. (To clarify, the #4 circuit features 3 slides: an upper, a lower, and an intermediate.)

Keeping in mind that the outer diameter of these INSIDE slide tubes is upwards of 9/10", you can see (proportions-wise) that they are now quite long:
(yes...That's a new/replacement 80:20 "gold" brass tuning slide bow.)

Finally, I swapped out the (added) #3 water key nipple for a "genuine" Miraphone one (with a large curved oval flange). The other one was choked down at the bottom (c. 3/32" opening at the top, but probably less than 1/16" at the bottom) and not much water was draining (as mentioned in a previous post).





...so (though most threads that I've proclaimed "done" have had addtional stuff posted in them) I'm probably considering this thread to be DONE.

> This tuba has kicked some incredible butt from the get-go.
> All of these things that I've done to it have (thankfully) proved to be beneficial.
> Since the initiation of this thread, I've begun to get the hang of playing it.
> I'm thinking that quite a few pieces/passages (that many of us have played endlessly on contrabass tubas) sound BETTER on this instrument that they've ever sounded (when I've played them) on any other (C-length or B♭-length) instrument.
> Requirements for instruments that I've kept for a considerable length of time have been pretty stringent...and (though I just bragged on the sonic characteristics) I value excellent intonation properties and ease-of-operation over sonic characteristics, because (just like tons of other tuba players) I can make most any pretty-good tuba sound pretty good.
> I wonder if even thirty of these exist.

[Doc]

Wife has been informed.

[bloke]

good luck !

again:
Neither of us (double negative ahead...) can't be expected to never sell these instruments, and doing so would null/void this, and (sure) if a spouse didn't want one of us to accept the other's instrument (or the other spouse is in an economic hardship situation) that would also null the agreement.

[YorkNumber3.0]

.

[bloke]

I thought about those things that you brought up before putting it together, but the corners aren't anywhere close to my wrist, and a wide surface would not only add more weight - requiring a stronger spring, but it would also define more friction against my wrist where if I rotated my wrist a little bit it would have more have a tendency to coax the slide to drag along one side of the other of the outside tubes, which could cause the thing to hang just a little bit. I also looked at my wrist and saw that it is really quite flat on the underside and I even put a piece of tubing up next to it and pushed against it pretty hard and it never presented any real discomfort. Sometimes, less is more.

I think sometimes Germans overbuild gadgets that they add to instruments, such as those wildly overbuilt main tuning slide things on compensating euphoniums. I'm mostly of German descent, but I try not to mostly embrace German mentality, unless it's a subset of German mentality which is clever. I miss the mark quite often.

[bloke]

Soon, this custom nickel guard plate (matching the style of those on the outer circumference of the instrument) will be installed on top of the smaller/upper bow of this huge tuba.

Once I built the #3 slide gadget to tune the F-sharp at the bottom of the staff (by pushing a bar down with my left wrist), I've found that I'm touching this upper bow quite often, so this (soldered to the bow) ought to shield the brass from my skin far better than some vinyl or nylon thing...

...oh yeah and - per the "voodoo" thread - since it's roughly halfway around the bugle of the instrument, The Science indicates that it should "solidify" the middle register pitches sonority.

[tubaing]

Made in Germany or Tenessee?

[bloke]

Miraphone was generous enough with their time to custom make that for me. (In the meantime, I picked up a few 186/188 thumb rings from them and sold them to people who had been asking me for them. They're not terribly expensive if someone doesn't have to pay individual shipping and gets them from the source.)

I have some scrap bows that I could have easily cut that out from and fit it to that place, but I like the idea of it being nickel - to match the caps on the outside of the instrument, and also nickel-brass will leave far less green residue on my wrist... and I could have had Anderson plate a brass one with nickel so thickly that I would have never worn through the nickel, but - by the time I would have had that done, the guard made from scrap would have cost more than the one from Miraphone.

[bloke]

OK...(including a guard - that I installed, and posted about in it's OWN thread), I've done a bunch of stuff to this instrument...mostly for the purposes of micro-tuning...

...but - WITHOUT any of that stuff - this thing plays REMARKABLY well in tune.

I was just reminded of that today:

I did some work on a very recently-built 86 B-flat (dent removal, misc. stuff)...all of the improvements and subtle adjustments in the bugle that have improved intonation, etc...

I'm tempted to show the electronic tuner - playing through the overtone series (various valve combinations), but it's too easy to cheat, and it's boring...

...so I'm "just sayin' " The 86 B-flat intonation is "very good", but the 98 intonation is "remarkably better".

As a (retired) full-time orchestra musician is quoted as having said to me (when we were discussing the 98, when it was first introduced - and he was a C player, and "ridiculous" means "astonishingly great")...

That thing is ridiculous.

==================================

AS TO THAT SPRING-LOADED #3 SLIDE WRIST-OPERATED GADGET:

I've determined that the spring is now "perfect" and the alignment is "perfect".
The ONLY thing that occasionally causes it to BARELY hang up is the fact that one vent hole is inadequate venting.
I'll be "stacking" one or two more vent holes in the #3 rotor, and the action of this mechanism will then be 100% reliable. It works perfectly and is rock-solid reliable when the valve is depressed, so obviously it's not being vented enough.