Don't try to understand 'em; Just rope an' throw an' brand 'em

[bloke]

I believe KHS is going to send me three delicate little braces for the main tuning slide on their little 378 held-together-by-a-bunch-of-screws model.

Yeah...most "techs" tack those back together with blobs of lead solder (particularly during the frantic summer), but that's just really $h!tty.

I unsmashed one of those "punk" 1980's tiny Besson tubas tonight...way too much work...Bottom bow and other bows were 50% closed up.

I don't feel like it was "worth" it, but - well - if I was a little kid playing that thing - and it came back all straightened out for the next year - I'd probably sorta feel proud...but I just don't know about these modern young scholars...

again: Had we done 1% of this damage, we would have been badly bruised, allowance-less, and grounded for the entire summer.

[bloke]

There's a really nice guy (maybe a bunch of 'em?) at Jupiter in Tennessee (located on the east side of Nashville).

This guy doesn't seem to know much about parts, but went to a BUNCH of trouble (yesterday and today) to get me the correct three piddly braces (under-engineered, but not his fault) for their entry-level tuba's main tuning slide.

They've given me log-in codes (over-and-over) to get to their parts site, but they never work...so he's sending me a flash drive with sousaphones/marching stuff (ie. the stuff that young scholars regularly destroy).

I might have those three little braces before the weekend. (I'm trying to "get rid of" this next school system's huge pile...I'm down to THIS tuba and about ten marching "things"...(Mrs. bloke's hittin' the bari saxes, bass clarinets, tenors, and such.) re: "three little braces"...If I worked as a "tech" in the back of a music store, I could just tack them back together with lead solder.

After that only ONE MORE (albeit also HUGE) school system's stuff, and then a LARGE collection for a community college band (although "no rush" - as none of it is marching stuff, so we'll probably hit that one last) and a GIGANTIC pile for a major university (ALL marching stuff). ...the major university: A ridiculous # of sousaphonist recruits, this year...so we're "rescuing" a few (you know: the ones that the valve sections totally fell off of them) Weril/Dynasty sousaphones that they own...I bought a buttload of King (1/4" fit) braces to use as "generic" braces to stick those things back together...The pistons always seem to work on those - even though the nickel plating was "parenthetical", and many of those pistons are worn down to bare (not nickel silver, but) brass.

not mentioned: a "medium-sized" school system's stuff...Mrs. bloke is plowing through the end of their (absolutely horrible condition) woodwinds, today, and then that one will be done (as I've done their brass).

one other high school...We'll "fit in" a couple of St. Pete's (typical carriage bar bracket failure, missing thumb rings, broken braces, dents., etc...(and Tuba Exchange was very nice to sell is the exact braces...and tossed in SEVERAL extras), a bassoon with a broken-off long joint maple tenon (we're charging pretty good for that...and I have to make a wrap-over-the-end brass reinforcement band for that tenon - once the tenon is fabricated, the broken one is chopped off, and the joint is counterbored for the installation). They will hand us off a bunch more, next year...We sort of "earned" their business (away from a music store) by finding them several Conn sousaphone mouthpipes to BORROW - as the sousaphones themselves were BORROWED). Normally, they use those shoulder-mount yamathings.

[bloke]

...ancient middle school Holton double horn...

I went back to my shot-valves parts horn, and - everything this horn needed - I had. Did I charge retail prices for that thumb lever, that stop arm, and that cork plate with bumpers and screws? You betcha.

Other than that one beginner Jupiter tuba waiting for those three braces (which are coming in the mail), this huge school system's stuff is down to a stack of ten or so marching instruments (plus five ww's that Mrs. bloke will start on later tomorrow). I can usually repair those marching thingies sitting down - except for bell flare dents, so tomorrow I'm charging forward on them.. but I got to get a haircut early in the morning (it's been too many months, touch ups in the bathroom with scissors don't work anymore, and it's turned into a mop) because I've got that string of gigs on Thursday and someone's-coming-from-Missouri with a PT-something-or-other C tuba repair, timed for when I get back late in the afternoon (also Thurs.). I'm considering playing all those quintet charts on F cimbasso, "just because".
Hey ...
Rain tomorrow, and it only made it up to 94 today (even though the local-yokel meteorologists were predicting the world was going to burn up).

... y'all aren't really reading this crap, right?

[pompatus]

... y'all aren't really reading this crap, right?

@bloke , As a middle-aged man, I still find myself fascinated by instrument repair techs. This thread just makes my day every time I see an update posted. Truly.

[bloke]

LOL...
OK, I'll continue - a bit - with the stream-of-consciousness-nonsense stuff.

[bloke]

likely the BEST-SOUNDING of all the marching euphoniums (King), but this one was totally trashed.

I'm not going through the punch list, but this bell was duck-billed and torn (about a 1/4th inch tear from the rim).

After fixing all the valve/slide/brace/dent issues, I silver brazed this crack. Yeah, this repair is UGLY AS HELL, but not as ugly as a chunk of sh(ee)t brass lead soldered over the crack and wrapped around the rim...and I left it thick enough to withstand similar (assumed) abuse this-coming fall.

fwiw, the Ferree's dent machine power-whatchamacallit DOES roll across this repair (curious, so I tested it before cleaning it up).





I STILL have to go back (after eating my lunch-dinner weird-schedule meal) and fix the CASE LATCHES they busted...

bloke "young scholars..."

[bloke]

Had to chem clean two terrible Jupiter mellophones and round up missing parts for them, tonight. ' got through both, and - plus the tuba that's waiting for the braces - I'm down to only five more marching instruments for this huge school repair order. I believe Mrs. bloke has the same number of instruments left for this same school system.

One more huge school system left, one puny one, and then on to the huge university order that's larger than any, and a formidable community college repair order. That's the finish line, but that's just the beginning of the end, because they will find more stuff that's torn up and they will re-tear up stuff that we've just fixed along with other stuff that wasn't broken when band camps start... and then there's the flood of individually owned instruments that people didn't do anything with during the entire summer, and then there's the regular steady flow of adult repair customers that are both local and come from several states away. Remember? I've got somebody with a pt4 I think showing up tomorrow at 4:00 after I get back from those nursing home gigs. I think they live somewhere up in Missouri.

I need to take a feel better hot bath along with some aspirin to make my bones not hurt as much, wash off these chemicals, and then grab some sort of tuba to make some noise on it so that tomorrow I don't sound like I haven't been playing for a month and a half.

[bloke]

two terrible old Dynasty marching baritones repaired tonight. Both of them had rotten mouthpipes and all sorts of things wrong, twisted this way and that, and loaded with dents all over.

If if the totally worn out valves - which were ill-fitting in the first place - hadn't been so stubborn, I could have been done more than an hour earlier with those two things.

[bloke]

The school system that I will be finishing up today - with a couple of Yamaha marching baritones - I believe will have been the most challenging of all that were in the barn this year stacked up. It was the same last year, but I believe it was a bit more challenging this year, with some of the things the young scholars decided to do to some of their instruments. I just wish that those beginner Jupiter tuba main tuning slide braces had arrived from Nashville yesterday, so that their one last instrument could be done and I could tie a bow around this school system's pile.

Some of the property hasn't even been mowed once this year. Maybe I'll go out and mow after those two marching baritones are done - rather than moving on to the next big school system, and maybe I'll just start on the next school system tomorrow/Sunday. It's hot as hell today - and dry, and that's the best formula for cutting really tall grass.

UPDATE:

...so the Jupiter braces just arrived via UPS (Saturday delivery).





also (typical bloke gripe...)

As a TAXPAYER, I'm really tired of band directors (with neither their money or even their parents' pooled "booster" money) ordering THE MOST EXPENSIVE make of marching brass (and other instruments of the most expensive makes) just so they can be torn up by young scholars.
OK...ADVERTISEMENT...
Again...The super-expensive brand's pistons are all soldered together with soft (lead) solder, and nickel plated...and (based on dent removal experience) just a bit on the thin side. ("Thin" doesn't mean "cheaply made", but it DOES mean larger dents.) Those that we and many others offer are nearrly identical, ALSO made in Asia, feature really well-made stainless steel pistons - which are brazed together, and evidences of piston-to-casing contact on the entire piston walls. They cost taxpayers far less, and their carrying cases are exponentially more durable.





...particularly when young scholars routine do THESE sorts of things to either the higher-priced ones or the (imo) better-made lower-priced ones...





Also, What's with the taxpayer-bought silver plating...so that bands can march with smudged grey, black, and (repaired areas) brown instruments...??
We rarely see any evidence of young scholars keeping those things shiny, and they whoop up on 'em just are fiercely as they do the lacquer-finish ones...

[pompatus]

I’m really a bit in shock about the state of these instruments/posts. I remember being taught to respect and be a steward of items I didn’t directly own.

Technicians and mechanics must have the patience of a saint.

[bloke]

I’m really a bit in shock about the state of these instruments/posts. I remember being taught to respect and be a steward of items I didn’t directly own.

Technicians and mechanics must have the patience of a saint.

I charge my highest rates in the summer.
One very large high school program (one that enters and places in national contests, rather than local ones) has figured this out, and has worked their budget around so that there's still money left (in the SPRING) to do this stuff, rather than handing it all off to us after school's out, and paying with the NEXT year's dough.

The money is pretty good...The fact that we never have any summer vacations...?? meh. I'm not a "vacation" type of person. Vacations are stressful, and I like my place - as well as my own bed. ...the fact that today's young scholars tear this stuff all up...?? (We probably would have as well, were there no corporal punishment, no accountability - ie. the local government pays for all this damage, and no publicly-posted merit/demerit chart. Also, we were encouraged to grow up into gentlemen and ladies, rather than to be angry, and blame adults (or even worse: "adults who don't look like us") for our own ineptness, ignorance, and bad decisions.

[bloke]

Here's the three-braces-broken-off-this-small-bore-main-tuning-slide-tube from a Jupiter 378 (pretty much, a Yamaha 105 knockoff).

IMHO, Jupiter has too damn much stuff that unscrews and slips apart (by design) on this model...and all that stuff gets loose, the young scholars don't give a crap, and these instruments end up in pieces...

...but here's an exception:

Jupiter decided to make the mouthpipe completely detachable, and to slip an inside tube (soldered to the bottom of it) into the TOP of the smaller-bore size of the main tuning slide...

That insert (lime) became hopelessly stuck, the main slide ended up stuck (I somehow managed to free the main slide), and the three one-piece braces all ended up being busted (nope: not by me).

Jupiter had the braces in stock (which is cool), but not the tube.

I found a tube from a 1970's formerly-chrome-over-nickel-over brass small marching GG contra. Yes, I had this tube (along with the parts that I actually needed for a project) stripped.

This Olds tube was about .007" too loose, so I shrunk it down with a shrinking tool, I moved the Jupiter tension ring over to the (cut-to-length) Olds tube (now: the correct i.d.), cut the necessary slot for the tension ring, went back to the ORIGINAL tube, peeled the original tube back like a sardine can, and extracted the inside/insert tube (which can now be soldered back to the bottom of the detachable mouthpipe.

People who do summer/school repairs are a bunch of hacks.

OK...fine. I'll take the money, and you can clean someone's Bach trumpet and replace the spit corks.




REMINDER PIC:
Here are the three replacement braces...

[bloke]

Completing this tuba (which seemed innocent enough, before I realized how messed up it was) marks the completion of another school system.
Mrs. bloke finished her last instruments for TWO school systems (this one and one that I had already finished) today as well.
Today - for this school system - she finished her last baritone sax (an old dog Bundy). For a PREVIOUS school system, she FINALLY discovered why a (also dog-Bundy) piccolo wouldn't quite play right...There was a friggin' CRACK in the plastic headjoint...Fortunately, it was repairable with glue, as the crack ran horizontally, rather than across the headjoint.

This innocent-looking little tuba was a MESS, and - not only did I have to reinstall the hidden little main tuning slide (with three new non-adjustable braces) so that it would work (after freeing all the HORRIBLY stuck slides on this instrument), I also had to put this little main tuning slide PRECISELY where it had been before, so that the mouthpipe tubes TWO detachable braces would line back up with their counterparts soldered to the bell.

oh yeah...and - just before the mouthpipe receiver, the back half of the mouthpipe had been concavely flattened against the bell, so I had to repair that as well (also without changing the curvature of the mouthpipe for all the reasons above). I suppose I COULD HAVE not addressed that damage, but - right there towards the small end of the mouthpipe tube - that concave damage was over 50%.

now...?? (coffee-ed up, hot bath...toot on my new-to-me-sousaphone for about two minutes, and then practice on the tubas for a little bit).

[bloke]

I'm shoehorning in a new customer which is just a high school for now. They have two beat up St Pete's, and they handed me a beat up King contra. There's also a bassoon that had a snatched off long joint maple tenon, and Mrs. bloke is working on that.

I've worked on a few Jinbao contras - reinforcing their mouth pipes with double thickness tubing, I've worked on one Yamaha, and I don't really remember what I did with that one, and I think this is my first King. There aren't many of these contra things around here.

Looking at the quality of the repair work rendered to it in the past, I couldn't help wondering whether it was some individual or someone who worked at a store, and - if it was someone at a store - if they had worked there for more than a couple of months, why weren't they fired (?).

Anyway, I took it apart and put it back together about as right as it can be. I'm going to drag Mrs bloke out there - after she finishes making me one of these garden-fresh smoothies, and I'm going to have her help supervise while I get these tenuous bell braces stuck back down... honestly, those braces don't look strong enough to do any good, but they look like factory braces so that's what they get.

UPDATE...
The King contra-thing is all straightened out and back together. Mrs. bloke helped me "convince" the bottom bow (which had been ovaled, and the large side tenon was hangin' out at a crazy angle) and braces back to their original locations (as young scholars had previously convinced those things otherwise).
I picked it up (eek !!!) and played it just a little bit.
I'm quittin' the band, dammit !!!
What an absurd athletic event.
ie. "Here: Hold this"
me: "SH!T !!!"
them again: "Now, play stuff on it."

[bloke]

The way this King Contra was jacked around, when I finished repairing it the bell.flare was even closer to the upper bow - even though some of the straightening that I did defined that the bell would extend out slightly farther past the upper bow, but then I realized that out also removed dents from the upper bow that were previously about an inch deep. LOL

[bloke]

I stuck the King contra in its case several hours ago, straightened out a St. Pete, and have one more St. Pete left to call this (small batch for one new-customer high school) "done". (Mrs. bloke has to finish up that snapped-off-tenon bassoon's long joint.)

I kept staring at the contra, because it just didn't look "right" to me - even though I (unless whomever worked on it last) put everything back on the factory placements (solder joint witness marks).

I finally realized that - even though it's SORT OF like a tuba, it's actually SHAPED more like a bazooka...and then (ok...) I'm cool with that.

[bloke]

I'm seeing light at the end of the tunnel after replacing (7) braces on an eastern European rotary tuba.

There's one US importer, and - responsibly - they stock parts.

When I wrote up a quote to repair this, I took a quick look around the instrument (in the barn - lighting is OK, but not ideal) and found three or four broken braces. I took pictures, they quoted me a price, charged me a reasonable price for three or four braces, and send me a jingling zip lock with around a DOZEN braces in it.

Either they saw stuff in the background (in those pictures) that I did not see, or they knew from experience that - "Hey, if THOSE are broken, then THESE are probably broken as well..." because I will have needed/used SEVEN out of the dozen.

This one isn't as dented as was the first of the pair of these, but seriously...all of these (one-piece) braces...

...but most of them have been sorta-close to fitting, and any schmoozing that I had to do is probably related to careless handling by young scholars.

I appreciate the baggie of braces !!!

Once this one's completely done, I'll be done with this school, and will only be waiting for Mrs. bloke and that bassoon long joint work.

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

After this is only ONE MORE school system (middle/high). They have about seven sousaphones, ten other march-a-things (including a couple of bass trombones...yes - really) and there are around four tubas for the middle school.

After that, there's a major university with around SEVENTY-FIVE instruments that are needed by the first or second week of August, then those concert instruments (two dozen, including a few woodwinds) and then (other then re-damage and stuff peeps didn't realize was damaged) we will have cleared out the barn...

LOL...only 130 instruments to go.

[bloke]

I made an adjustable thumb ring for a St Pete. Hell no I'm not going to show it to you... made it in only 10 minutes. It works but it's not pretty.

[bloke]

LOL...
I charged a lot to fix the stuff that was wrong with this four valve Jupiter sousaphone, and earned the money.
I suspect a whole bunch of other people - when they came across the thing that I discovered today (that I did not discover when quoting on this instrument) - would have emailed the band director and told them that they need to buy a piston.

[bloke]

All six of the sousaphones are done for the last large school system order, and what are remaining are ten "smalls" (euphonium and smaller) along with four middle school instruments (mostly tubas).

Going back to the previous school system (small number of instruments) here are the seven busted braces that were replaced on one of the two St. Petes they handed me to fix:

(Most of one of those braces was missing.)