school repairs strategy/mindset

[bloke]

I can't remember the philosophical expression, but it has to do with

[A] doing considerable good for MANY
~ vs ~
doing extraordinary good for FEW

Repairs fall into those two categories, and (I believe) a successful repair person can employ one or the other - depending on the situation.
Obviously, there's a considerable benefit to being able to do GOOD work VERY fast, as (re: [A]) stuff will end up with MORE good done to it than otherwise.

Typical (sadly: really messed up) mellophones typically end up with...

- frozen main slides (LOL...of course, the one that actually matters just a little bit)
- twisted-sideways valve sections
- un-soldered and epically yanked-sideways mouthpipes (with some red-rot, defining extreme caution when repairing their epic damage)
- full of lime
- noisy/compressed piston felts
- other stuff (ridiculous bell flare and bow dents, solder joints, and you-name-it)

I can't help wondering whether this stuff - for which we (back in the 60's/70's) would have received multiple chart-on-the-wall demerits, possibly a paddling, a bad conduct grade on our report card, a low letter grade as well, and we-or-our-parents being required to have the instrument repaired - is brought forth mostly via substance abuse, quack behavioral prescription medicines, anger issues, lack of mechanical experience (with dads - if present - not knowing how to do things other than computer stuff and channel-changing), or what...
...but (though I can't help but wonder) none of that is any of my business.

My business (with school instruments) is to do as MUCH good for as MANY instruments for the AVAILABLE funds.

Here's a mellophone.

It had EVERYTHING on the list wrong (thankfully, no case repairs...)

To SPEED UP repairs, and keep costs down...

- Rather than un-soldering the typically-stuck main slide and carefully removing each leg (delicate braces, etc.) I "back-fed" some PB Blaster, heated the far ends of each of the tubes for about ten seconds with a low-flame torch, and carefully tapped out the slide.

- It was chemically cleaned, but I didn't go back and "pretty up" or "lap in" the slides and pistons. (Thankfully, the pistons are stainless steel - and not monel) so they cleaned up really well without having to go back over them by hand.)

- The valve section was untwisted cautiously by hand (no loosened solder joints, no "rebuilding").

- Knowing that there is pressure put on the lower portion of the #1 casing (when untwisting a mellophone valve section), I was completely ready (and did) burnish the lower portion of the #1 casing - once untwisted.

- The mouthpipe was wrecked. I LEFT IT ON THE INSTRUMENT. I quickly (to avoid burning lacquer) removed the receiver brace - to give me room to bend the mouthpipe back straight. PRIOR TO the major correctional bend, I repaired the mouthpipe's MINOR correctional bends FIRST - so the big bend would just about be the last bending to be done on it. (Per usual, there is some red-rot forming in the mouthpipe (why yellow brass chosen by the manufacturer with a mouthpipe tube this thin...??) Being that it was both bent and beginning to rot, I was extremely careful. The valve brace was partially loose and (predictably) popped off...and didn't break...so whatever. I cabled a couple of dent balls through the worst dents and previous worst bends...and then (as the mouthpipes are so very thin, these days) I was actually able to use a c. .440" dent ball and (after cabling removed those dents by about 85%) MAGNET BURNISHED those worst dents out "good enough". The two braces (intentionally-removed receiver brace and the valve brace - which I pretty much knew would pop loose) were reattached. The water key nipple was mushed in as well, so I coaxed it back up gingerly/cautiously with (not a dent ball, as - again - these jobs need to be FAST) but a slide expander - first placed under the front edge of the nipple, and then under the back edge. I replaced the "cork"...no leaks .

- With the valve section formerly twisted, I had to go back with calipers (+ eyeballs for coplanar) and re-align all the slides. They're now "good" and the #1 thumb saddle one now slippy-slides as it should (no oil/grease...and only used a slide expander under where a brace dented an outside slide tube)...so all slides slide easily, and none of the pistons stick (even when pushed sideways from all directions, and tested "dry")

- Finally, were the "for show" dents (bell flare/large body bow, etc.).

This total gig took an hour (which was a bit disappointing, but I do tend to be overly-optimistic regarding how long stuff will take).

This time (with their destroyed pile of instruments), the director said that he really wanted them fixed "good".
I looked through these instruments' serial numbers, and none of them are any of the same ones that were torn up last time.
I'm thinking "charging more" probably convinces people that I'm doing really good work for them, yes?

SUMMARY/MAIN POINT
I COULD HAVE ordered (and waited how long - ?? - for) a new mouthpipe, but I believe that the TAXPAYERS would MUCH prefer that I let the children tear THIS ONE up once or twice more BEFORE they're asked to buy/install that part. I COULD have prettied up the slide surfaces (and not just chemically cleaned them) but they slide nice. I COULD have done a few more niceties, but (as everything is GOOD) I'm currently drinking my lunch coffee, eating two slices of bologna, and getting ready to call the mellophones DONE, and moving on to the twisted up marching baritones.

[bloke]

I'm so sick of being the "Darling of the Sousaphones"...

THIS time, I put them off until LAST (rather than dispensing with them FIRST).

thankfully...only 5, this time (better than 19...)

[EmptyCase]

I'm so sick of being the "Darling of the Sousaphones"...

THIS time, I put them off until LAST (rather than dispensing with them FIRST).

thankfully...only 5, this time (better than 19...)

Call me insane... but personally I like working on sousaphones and tubas the most. Mabey in part because I am a tuba player, or just dumb enough to like the challenge lol.

[bloke]

I'm so sick of being the "Darling of the Sousaphones"...

THIS time, I put them off until LAST (rather than dispensing with them FIRST).

thankfully...only 5, this time (better than 19...)

Call me insane... but personally I like working on sousaphones and tubas the most. Mabey in part because I am a tuba player, or just dumb enough to like the challenge lol.

I'm sort of tired of un-spiraling lower mouthpipe tubes and straightening out their mangled braces... mostly because these young scholars are really busy and don't have an extra two seconds to loosen wing screws. If only they had two more seconds, but these schools obviously keep them really busy with their studies.

[bloke]

The last couple of days I blasted through eight marching baritones that all were all crunched up and all needed chem clean jobs, I spent a good bit of time with Mrs bloke with a really problematic crappiest of the crap Chinese alto sax that was donated to a middle school and the band director wanted it repaired.. some nice looking counterfeit Hermes pads that were just terrible, as far as the actual leather and felt they were made of, plus we kept getting an octave chirp and finally figured out that it was the poor fitting neck, which we fit to the receiver. I also repaired someone's walk-in 188 with a first rotor that wasn't particularly happy with its casing..' had been dropped, and then a college student dropped in with his 55-year-old really worn Bach Stradivarius trumpet that had parts rotting away (literally) and he wanted a #1 slide spring trigger converted to a thumb saddle (and the tubes weren't very well aligned on that slide, so I had to do that as well)... I got him squared away as well. I probably should be heading back out there (I'm really snowed with work) now that I've had dinner, but I think I'm going to try a hot bath soak and see about playing the tuba a little bit to restore my sanity (up to a level of only moderate insanity).

I'm going to say something about the marching baritones that's going to sound like a commercial: They were all JP - which are obviously copies of Yamaha but better made and made of better materials.. okay "in my opinion". I have repaired a zillion Yamaha marching baritones over the years, and these JP things were just as badly abused as any I'd ever seen, but repaired much more quickly and easily than Yamaha instruments typically do, and (JP) I didn't have to dick around with the valves to get them to work when I reassembled them. Further, not a single case needed any case repairs.

[bloke]

Thank goodness for the weekend!
Today and tomorrow are the sousaphone days.
Beautiful weather which I can see out the window while straightening out five trashed sousaphones, but this is the end of this repair order, and then all I'll have to do is wait a month to get paid.

[Cameron Gates]

This is a great idea for a permanent (pinned?) topic. Many of the folks visiting this “Repairs & Modifications” room have to be in the same boat:

School work ain’t sexy but it does pay.

Personally, I am the lone district-employed brass repairman for the 5th largest school district in the country. Keeping up with over 100 high and middle schools is a task that is impossible, but I will never stop plugging away.

Summer is just around the corner. We all know what that means: death by ungabunga. It would be nice to have a permanent thread of ideas and general bitching. Misery loves company.

The first gripe I would like air is the questioning of the value of providing EVERY student with an instrument. Back in my day (80’s) and in my home area (Oregon coast and California) the only instruments the schools provided were the obvious ones. Trumpet, trombone, and clarinet players rented or owned their own. Not now. Not where I currently live. The schools in my district own and lend EVERY trumpet, flute, trombone, and clarinet (which are, out of necessity, cheap POS’s when new). This is what makes my job impossible.

With the family/parents/student having everything handed to them leaves them with ZERO skin in the game and cheapens the overall product/band experience. This leads to a very fluid and non-dedicated population to build a band program beyond just numbers. Bottom line: If little Susie had to pay for her flute by busting her butt babysitting or little Bobby’s parents shelled out $1500 to the local strip mall music store for his Yamaha “trigger” trombone you know what the answer would be when the student is offered the potential robotics class instead of band.

Oh, and I love ripping bows off 20K’s.

So, I say let the experiences, observations, repair tips, and bitching begin.

[bloke]

Some band directors believe that COMPLETELY disassembling instruments (prior to the summer) is helpful.

It is NOT.

Parts get lost (at the very least: springs) during disassembly.

Pistons (yup) can end up being dropped on the floor.

Lime-coated surfaces (when REASSEMBLED) define UNAVOIDABLE (regardless of the school's repair budget) chem-clean jobs.

Further, kids can't remove all the parts, so there are some parts in the case, and some still mounted...
It WASTES AT LEAST an extra 10 - 15 minutes...PLUS the time the students' spent doing useless chores.

[Cameron Gates]

My primo gripe of all HS band directors: Get your f@#%ing marching crap in and done directly after the marching season. Do not wait until summer.

I have been asking this of band directors each and every one of my 32 years as a repairman. I figured that working directly for a school district would solve this problem due to no money from the programs being needed. What did I find? No difference at all. That would require the teacher to expend energy and their valuable time I guess. Too much to ask.

This summer I will be picking up the bad offenders last, as in right before marching band camp. I can’t wait for those complaints to start rolling in to my overlords. Gonna be fun.

[bloke]

My primo gripe of all HS band directors: Get your f@#%ing marching crap in and done directly after the marching season. Do not wait until summer.

I have been asking this of band directors each and every one of my 32 years as a repairman. I figured that working directly for a school district would solve this problem due to no money from the programs being needed. What did I find? No difference at all. That would require the teacher to expend energy and their valuable time I guess. Too much to ask.

This summer I will be picking up the bad offenders last, as in right before marching band camp. I can’t wait for those complaints to start rolling in to my overlords. Gonna be fun.

They CAN'T because they spent every G-d penny on all that peripheral crap related to their "contest" show, including those ridiculous (non sequitur) props. They have to wait until July 1, to pass "GO". (Of course, ALL of them need ALL of their $h!t back by July 7th.)

[Dents Be Gone!]

I agree, guys. This is the way to go.

[bloke]

Yes to all.
I can't remember how many decades it's been that the King and then Conn sousaphones (when they started making those again) have been made paper thin...Has it been since the late '80s, or earlier or later than that? They're actually easier to straighten out, but - after a few years - their seams on their large bows start cracking open from being dented so many times.

Yamaha - with those large bows bolted together... What's with that mess? Don't dare unbolt them. They will never go back together, once the bows are straightened. I'm nearly 100% sure that those bolted together halves are installed bolted together, and soldered to the two bows already bolted.
I have to believe that there then unbolted and handed to the buffing guy (person). I think what most people don't understand about Yamaha and their take apart stuff is that it is not done to help us out, but it's simply done so that their buffing and lacquering people have an easier/faster time.

I know I keep sounding like a commercial for JP, but I just went through repairing several of them. They have pluses and minuses, but a whole bunch of pluses. Pluses include nickel silver inside and outside slide tubing that is very well fit and very well aligned, along with nickel silver male and female Bell collars. All of the bracing is really good other than one thing that I'll go into later. Another plus is reasonably thick body bows. They don't dento as much as American ones and are more work to smooth out. Another plus is the amazing fit of the pistons to the casings. It's as good as European and the build quality of the Pistons themselves is as well. Anyone who complains about the valves sticking probably never oils them, and I've encountered customers' $15,000 European tubas with terrible feeling valves for the same reason: never oiling. When they're clean, they are amazing. I also like the solid nickel water keys. I think it's also handy that the mouthpipes are basically interchangeable with Conn - although a little bit different, and the tuning bits are just about interchangeable with Yamaha - although a little bit different...and - of course Conn bits also work.
A couple of minuses might be the valve guides, although I'm not having to replace any on these four or five that I'm working on right now, and I've discovered that I can slide Jupiter valve guides on them and they work just fine. The lower mouthpipe bracing could be a little stronger, but what's really dumb is that 100% of all sousaphone lower mouthpipe damage (ALL makes) is due to the young scholars not loosening the tension screws, so where does the blame really lie, and how strong do these setups on all brands really need to be? I can't decide whether it's mind-altering substances, being in a terrible hurry because the band rehearsal runs too long, anger issues, or the fact that none of their fathers can even change a light bulb - and thus none of these young scholars have any mechanical inclination for any understanding of how to avoid breaking things.
The final huge plus is the price, which is considerably cheaper than Jupiter (assuming a competitive dealer) and less than half the price of what they copy (which is King), as well as the dealer pricing including shipping from the warehouse and a case which is similar to an MTS case.
As a post script, JP does keep the lower mouthpipe assemblies in stock in London, and postage is surprisingly quick. So far I've just repaired every single one that's been twisted in the past, and I think more repair people need to learn how to repair things like this, rather than just being parts changers.

[Cameron Gates]

One of the schools in the district I work in bought 4 Packer sousaphones a few years back. So far, so good. It’s like a King without the plastic guard molding crap and removable brace hardware found on newish models.

How about that plastic King/Conn plastic molding? I have to believe it is (was?) used so a “band director” could peel them off and go to town killing the branches with a magnet and a way-too-small ball then replace with NEW peel and stick molding? Nothing could possibly go wrong, right? If not this, why was/is this stuff used? I would like to know.

I have pulled the bottom bows off 22 lacquer 20K’s since October. Each one had the plastic molding. On many of the horns the molding had fallen off and left the large and thin-walled bows to take the abuse from the aluminum bleacher seats unprotected. I have been trashing the plastic crap and have been using the universal Allied brass molding. I trust it more and it looks better.

The scary part is that Allied has been back ordered on the brass molding for a long time now. I’m down to five 3’ pieces and getting worried.

If anyone knows why Conn-Selmer went to this plastic crap please enlighten me.

[Dents Be Gone!]

I agree, guys. This is the way to go.

[Cameron Gates]

What is CA? Contact adhesive?

[Dents Be Gone!]

I agree, guys. This is the way to go.

[bloke]

King sousaphone:

Last year, they busted the silver-brazed hollow tube that was fastened to the band around the neck receiver...

...so (last year) I put (and NOT messy) about 1/2 square inch of silver solder between those two pieces.

young AP scholar: (likely: Stanford-bound, etc...)
"hmm...I can't seem to tear THIS connection back apart...Oh well, I'll just rip BOTH of the lead-soldered feet (arch to #1 upper return tubes) loose and (yup) crease the lower mouthpipe tube YET AGAIN !!!

bloke's rule: "Every time they tear the same thing up AGAIN, charge $150 more than last time." (Well...It PARTIALLY covers bidenflation.)

[Cameron Gates]

[/quote]Cyanoacrylate. Super glue, preferably not the grocery store stuff.
[/quote]

I will give that a try on the small curved plastic on the elbow by the bell tenon. This might be the precaution I have been dreaming about. I use contact cement to re-stick the molding. It works well, but the added superglue on the ends sounds like a winner.

Thanks. This thread is paying dividends.

[Dents Be Gone!]

I agree, guys. This is the way to go.

[bloke]

In the spirit of full disclosure, I do use that stuff in one other spot, in gel form to reattach loose finger button pearls.

But that’s it. I swear.

I'm sure it's not the best thing...
...but (not particularly excited about "pearl repair") I grab hot glue out of the case-crap cabinet, melt a drop onto a finger button, heat the finger button just a bit (to allow the hot glue to spread/additionally heat/adhere, and drop the pearl back in place.

I don't mind being scolded for using hot glue...but that "super glue" $h!t burns my eyes (and I don't want to pull out epoxy to mix up a tiny dot of it)...and (the real question) why the h3ㄥㄥ do they bring something as easy to do as "gluing a finger pearl" to me...?? (no...I'm not the worlds most amazing "technician", but seriously...)