"tech" - why I don't appreciate being referred to as such

[bloke]

If someone or some firm hires me to be a "technician", I'm glad to accept the fact that my job - which I agreed to accept - is to be a "technician".

Since my bosses are all individuals or outside institutions, I prefer that they call me "bloke".

If I'm aware of someone stating that "bloke's a tech", I might (but likely would not bother to) set them straight.
(Likely, very few would understand the objection anyway...)

I just got an email from the Memphis Symphony (while typing this crap...occupying time waiting for an automated email stating that someone paid for something - so I can go ahead and ship it) telling me to show up at so-and-so place to play on so-and-so date this month to play such-and-such. DURING THAT TIME - specifically - I'm ok with someone referring to me as a "tuba tech"...as long as I keep my composure, don't get carried away, and don't actually "phrase" anything, etc.

bloke "bloke's-a-tech does NOT rhyme with discotheque."

post script:
Today, someone drove 6 hrs. (r/t) to have me do the following things:
- replace 4 + 1 spit corks
- tighten a rotor spring
(I probably messed around and did stuff that they didn't care about...mostly: making some things less noisy on a Mirafaux. - We old people are easily annoyed by unnecessary noise, yes?)

To make it not seem like such an epic waste of time, I fed them lunch, we played each others' tubas, we shot the $h!t, and then we made fun of the rest of y'all...' very technical stuff, etc.

[BRS]

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[bloke]

"bloke's-a-tech does NOT rhyme with discotheque."

Oh, yessir, it does.

“Dis-co, Disco Bloke… Dis-co, Disco Bloke…”

Yeah, you just sang that in your head…

That tune hit #1 in October of '76 (and stayed in the Top 10 for over two months), when Rick Dees was a Memphis AM radio DJ.
He had to resign (conflict of interest) due to that (a complete surprise to him and everyone else) becoming a hit.

EVERYONE listened to his morning drive-time radio show, which included a "Cast of Idiots"...' good times.
He had a recording of Mayor Wyeth Chandler (a drunk who got into bar fights, whose father had been one of the previous mayors of Memphis) saying "Yes suh, Mr. Dees", and Rick used that ALL the time.

documentation: https://www.memphisflyer.com/wyeth-chan ... e-mediator

Dees also made relentless fun of Elvis' size (who would be dead less than than a year later), and played this ("He Ate Too Many Jelly Donuts") at least once every couple of days:
...and yeah, everyone in Memphis (certainly Dees himself) knew about "Dr. Nich". (If you don't, google will tell you.)

[BRS]

.

[bloke]

all too well...

Here's how big Elvis was in '76...
You'll recognize Linda Thompson from "Hee-Haw".
She went to my high school (graduated the year before I entered) and attended the same college as me (having left a couple of years prior to me entering there as well).

[bloke]

Were I to be hired as a "tech", I would assume that my job would be to - simply - wear short-sleeved white dress shirt with pocket protector, narrow long black tie, horn-rimmed glasses, and fill out cards (such as these) all day:




bloke "Mostly, I would check the vales."

[bloke]

OK...
I was out in the shop for roughly 2-1/2 hours taking formerly smashed/distorted parts and putting them back together (mounted on other formerly smashed/bent surfaces) as a precision assembly...and (choosing to leave the radio off) I thought about this dumb rhetoric-based thread that I instigated.

Factories have design engineers (who - these days - surely double as acoustical experts, particularly as more tuba players expect tubas to be able to be coaxed in tune), machinists, assemblers, parts finishers, assemblers, and other people-who-I-haven't-remembered/considered.

I would consider myself to be (hell no, not an "artist/artiste", but) a craftsman.
I take badly distorted (via carelessness, stupidity, anger, mental illness, etc.) manufactured parts, put them back as nearly completely as they previously were, and reassemble them into properly-aligned, and smoothly-functioning machinery.

I suppose a "tech" could look at all of these smashed/distorted/bent parts (not just bells and bows, but parts that lead into and are machine parts designed to move - and move smoothly/effortlessly), see that they no longer function, get on a laptop, make a list, order replacements for everything that's damaged, pull off the damaged parts, toss them in the scrap brass box (to be green and stuff), (once the finally arrive, and - if some are incorrect - gripe at the manufacturer) solder the new pieces on, eyeball them, and - if they move well - shine up those parts and shoot them (or not) with clear.

If nothing is rotted (and maybe only a little bit cracked), I'm more likely (as a craftsman) to put them all back like they were, put them back together and (just in case some other craftsman encounters may work) see if I just might be able to line stuff up just slightly better than (possibly?) they were to begin with...and no filing nor sanding...That's just dumb; who am I trying to fool (in favor of ruining an instrument)?

This is the stuff I messed with tonight - after un-smashing, un-bending, and un-denting the same parts , last night.
also: I didn't buy the water key. It was one that Miraphone bent to "sort of" work on tuning slide bows in my model 98. I took them off, replaced them with something more suitable, and tossed this one (and a couple of others) in a Miraphone parts drawer. I bent this one (not just how they are typically shipped from the factory, but) to seat nicely on this nipple, and to follow the contours of this old-school (now: repaired) part.

I don't know if I saved any money (by spending a few hundred bucks time on all this), but I'm sure all these mess would have COST hundreds of bucks and it still (yes?) would have taken at least HALF the time (that I spent on this) to trim, assemble, align, install the new parts...
...so (yes) I believe I did save some money...PLUS: I didn't have to wait a month for parts to come from Europe.

Everything in these pictures was badly damaged, and all brace flanges and contact solder joints are laid back into the original witness marks.

I spent less money, I got it done way sooner, (other than the salvaged water key) it's all original (c. 1962), and (I'm thinking) I'm ok with the label "craftsman", if others are accepting of it.


I may have taken this picture from too close, but those tubes (take my word for it) are parallel.



...and this isn't a bunch of boasting (everyone here already knows I can do all this $h!t, and I've don't countless of these before), but its an attempt to defend the rhetorical label, "craftsman" (vs. "tech").

[tofu]

.

[bloke]

It's really easy for something to come off as sounding like bragging, but if someone can go to a repair school for a year and then do what I did last night, I would consider them to be extraordinarily talented, and I would probably assume that they thought for themselves, and didn't pay a whole lot of attention to what they were taught at the repair school. After doing stuff for about five years (back in the 80's), I could not have done what I did last night. ... I would have gotten it done, but I would have approached it completely differently, without knowing some things that I know now, and it just would not have been as good. I'm sure that I did a few jobs like this back then, and I'm pretty sure they weren't as good.

I mentioned somewhere else that I repaired a couple of instruments for a friend yesterday, who drove six hours roundtrip and it was only about forty bucks of stuff that they wanted done. One instrument was a tuba that was bought by from a tuba player/repairman, and fixed up for sale. One of the first two rotors (one that is activated the most often) had obviously only been made to work, where it should have probably been rebuilt or replaced, but my customer wasn't interested in getting it to that level, just wanted a noise to stop, and all that was causing the noise was the fact that rotor assembly's spring was so weak that one of the ends of the spring was tapping against the carriage bar with each stroke, so I simply tightened the spring - even though the rotor body really should have been replaced and maybe the casing as well. The repairman/seller obviously replaced the bell, mouthpipe, and lower bow cap, so it seemed sort of -ish that they would just look at a pretty badly-damaged rotor and only get it to where it would turn (about 50% rotation, and with the stem rattling) to sell the instrument, but each of us looks at things differently, don't we?

(The next Miraphone that I would probably fix up to sell - after the one in the pictures above - has some of the same types of damaged rotor issues, and - before I sold that one - I would unsolder the valve section from the tuba and just go ahead and send it to Miraphone. (The reason I wouldn't just buy a couple of new rotors - and fit them in - is because their taper and fit has changed over the decades.)

More than any other type of brass instrument, I encounter all smoothed out and even refinished tubas with worn or damaged valves that have not been addressed. Wtf?

[BRS]

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[bloke]

Repair schools should be regarded as places to learn basics that will expedite becoming competent. They should not be considered places that will produce a polished individual. You’ll learn enough to be dangerous.

There’s routes other than schools, which are the ones I traveled. Being a grunt, indentured servant, etc…

I believe there's a REALLY serious perception problem with ALL SORTS of schools, and I'm REALLY GLAD that - right off the bat - someone got my point.
(ie. OK...This person's "got their trainin' ", so they're "good to go"...etc.)

"As of today, I am an M.D with a cardiology specialty, so anyone should equally consider me to fix their heart equally compared to a 58-year-old guy who is working in Bethesda. After all, I passed a written test on it, and watched three guys do this stuff - even assisting one of them."...(etc.)

It's the old/trite/true speech that university chancellors give to each graduating class: "Commencement means 'beginning'."

...along with (if you've ever played for a medical doctors graduating class commencement)...

"Never stop learning. We may believe that we know a lot, but - most of this stuff - we do not yet understand."

[bloke]

This (with temporary salvaged springs - and I'll put new springs on as the very last thing I do - when it's ready to sell) is just as quiet as the valves on my model 98.

Minibal linkage (etc.) is "tinkertoy" stuff, which can be assembled by a "tech".
To build this linkage requires a craftsman.

When Minibal links start to wear and make noise, a "tech" can unscrew them and discard them.
When this linkage starts to wear and make noise, a craftsman can swage/swedge (I get the same meaning for both spellings at online dictionaries) a T-joint so that they no longer click - yet move freely...and the same goes for the melt-into-place nylon bushings (at the tips of the S-arms).

I suspect (??) that Miraphone would have been just as happy to make this S-arm style linkage forever, but (I tend to suspect) that "techs" complained that it wore out, didn't know how to rebuild, and so Miraphone came up with the "DVS" stuff...but that still required some fitting/adjustment (and maybe even a bit of Dremel tool work)...annoying to "techs"...thus: Minibal links.

Clockspring linkage...??
Yeah, rebuilding that DEFINITELY requires a craftsman, but it takes a good craftsman a good bit MORE TIME to rebuild that stuff...and it tends to wear and make noise with a much higher frequency than outside-sprung T-joint linkage.

I would be perfectly willing to be a "tech" and swap all of this stuff out, but - having these already - it was way less expensive, relatively easy to do (within my personal craftsman wheelhouse - and I readily admit to having limits, in this regard), and (rather than waiting for parts from Germany) I did it TODAY.

[bloke]

misc:

I'm also thinking that this never-damaged 60-years-old carriage rod features a 2.5mm thread (vs. the modern 3mm thread).