POLL: shorty/fatty (York-like) Holton B-flat tuba with 19-inch bell...

[Yorkboy]

I'd be curious to know where a 6th valve would be located on a top-action-to-side-action-conversion piston horn (rotary valves would obviously be much easier).

It's enough of a head-scratcher to reverse-engineer in a 5th........

[bloke]

Yeah… I was really discussing a Miraphone 186 in the previous long post.
Six valves is a challenge on a front-action piston tuba...particularly if they are all independent.

What I am personally considering on this instrument is the ability to insert a long half-step slide in its proposed fifth valve circuit, but probably also make a long whole-step slide that could be used when the instrument encounters very low-range passages. It occurs to me - again - that a really in tune B-natural is of more value - on a B-flat tuba - than is a second partial (4 + 5) low E-flat.
...If there seems to be an accessible spot within the body cavity, I might even attempt to mount an extra pair of dummy and properly-aligned outside slide tubes - to store the extra slide on board the instrument. After all, if one piece in a concert called for some nice low E-flat’s and low D’s, that long whole-step slide wouldn’t do me much good sitting on my dresser at home or backstage in the case, would it?

[York-aholic]

Only 4 valves, and York body rather than Holton, but same concept. I used King leadpipe, valves (1,2,3 with added 2nd), MTS, dogleg and smallest branch which joined the next York branch perfectly.

I suspect yours will look nicer when you’re done.

York/King BBb

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[bloke]

Only 4 valves, and York body rather than Holton, but same concept. I used King leadpipe, valves (1,2,3 with added 2nd), MTS, dogleg and smallest branch which joined the next York branch perfectly.

I suspect yours will look nicer when you’re done.

F11EFBA5-5089-4EF5-8957-80A5ABFC1B48.jpeg

Yours looks REALLY nice.
I guess I have a question:
If I were to make the #1 slide any longer/taller (and/or totally eliminate the lower slide) will there still be room to remove the UPPER #1 slide (bell clearance issue) ?
This will be the least pre-planned instrument I will have ever assembled.
I'm hoping it's also the simplest.
Every other instrument was visualized - down to the last stupid detail - prior to commencing to build them, and thus "the building of them" ending up being drudgery.
I suspect it will look very much like yours, but we'll see.
I'm not sure how much different it could really look, as (again) the Holton bows were possibly (probably?) formed with salvaged/auction-bought/whatever York tooling.

I don't feel really great, today, but I did a token amount of work on this (because I was bored/frustrated with the crap Chinese rotary tuba I'm fixing for someone else, (actually) because (reasons 1,2,3, & 4) I felt sorry for them, and (reason 5) there isn't a whole bunch of work, right now...though I would RATHER be fixing up and selling more of the cool stuff in the attic.

(Actually, I ALSO have some VERY SIMILAR work to do for the person who was generous enough to donate these two parts to me.)

[York-aholic]

I guess I have a question:
If I were to make the #1 slide any longer/taller (and/or totally eliminate the lower slide) will there still be room to remove the UPPER #1 slide (bell clearance issue) ?

I suspect it will look very much like yours, but we'll see.
I'm not sure how much different it could really look, as (again) the Holton bows were possibly (probably?) formed with salvaged/auction-bought/whatever York tooling.

I’ve often wondered about the similarities between York and Holton parts all the way back to their beginnings. My current thoughts are that they possibly just arrived at similar designs based on what was popular/worked, what was available (tubing and bore sizes) and what ideas workers brought to one company after working for the other companies.

I recently bought a 3v top action Lyon & Healy 6/4 BBb. From the pictures, I was 100% sure I was driving to see/purchase a Holton Mammoth. Ferrules, smaller top branch, all looked exactly like a Holton Mammoth, except that the tuning slide was in the lead pipe before the valves. The bell is a dead ringer for a certain Holton bell I have. Nope , L&H “Own Make”, complete with a picture of their factory engraved above the scroll work. My next thought was, ‘They were both in Chicago at that time, Holton must have made it for them’. Nope, my L&H (serial #3xx) looks to have been built 1900. Holton didn’t start making their Mammoth until the teens I believe. L&H was still in business then, so it is unlikely that Holton had their tooling but rather made something extremely similar while Putting their own spin on it (MTS after the valves). The L&H has an incredible sound, it is the sound I’ve always heard in my head and wanted to sound like. The intonation is a bit curious though. It’s amazingly light: 18.8 lbs. My big York 6/4 (granted its a 4v) weighs 28.


To get back on track... ...I’ll attack it (York/King) with a tape measure tomorrow morning to answer the 1st slide question.

[bloke]

Thanks for looking into that.
The Grand Rapids York plant was shuttered (mostly, if not completely) about the time (1960’s) that Holton began offering these Collegiate model 19 inch bell short tubas, that – bow wise – seem identical to York B-flats (as well as with the Collegiate E-flats)...but I can only guess or assume.

[Yorkboy]

I understand (?) that J. W. York and Frank Holton were business partners, early on.

It's possible that "the apple doesn't fall too far from the tree" is an appropriate bromide in this case. I've taken apart enough of both makes to determine that the only parts that are truly interchangeable (with small variatons that arise with "handmade" parts) are the bells and the bottom bows.....the smaller branches are not even close, either in length, shape, and occasionally, radius. I'd suspect that York supplied the larger parts to the new Holton company, at least at the beginning, and maybe as Holton grew, he had his own mandrels made to produce his own parts, based closely on the York formula.

Of course anything is possible, but this is my "take".

[York-aholic]

Thanks for looking into that.
The Grand Rapids York plant was shuttered (mostly, if not completely) about the time (1960’s) that Holton began offering these Collegiate model 19 inch bell short tubas, that – bow wise – seem identical to York B-flats (as well as with the Collegiate E-flats)...but I can only guess or assume.

I agree that the two brands look very similar. However, Holton was (I assume) making Monster Ebs long before that (Thinking of Mr. Elephant's tricked out Holton Monster Eb project), so would have had the tooling for at least the bell and bottom bow from that to use towards the BBb. Come to think of it, I seem to remember the TN user PRO having a Holton BBb ("Holton Standard" I think he said) that he said was very similar to mine pictured above. I think it pre-dated York going out of business. Whether Holton had its own tooling or eventually acquired York's when they went out of business, the York and Holton are very similar to each other, as were their Monster Ebs. I tend to think @Yorkboy is on the money. Holton and York did for a partnership very early on. Certainly the companies would have kept tabs on each other's offerings through the years, the same way I am sure Ford looks at Chevy's new models and vice versa.

I've also observed similar to what @Yorkboy just said (posted while I typed this). Horns that look very similar, when taken apart and corresponding parts are put next to each other have enough differences to not be truly interchangeable.

I used to have a Grand Rapids Band Instrument Co version of this same York (pictured above). When put next to each other they looked the same. Bore size, bell size, taper, etc. all the same. But the ferrules joining the bows were in slightly different spots, a couple inches higher or lower. The same between a York 702, 700 and Model 33 larger bows. Many have the same small end and large end diameters, but the lengths of each leg were different between the horns. I had high hopes for replacing the bows on my 702 (that had been cut in half) with ones from these other two horns, until I started taking things apart.



As to the #1 slide clearance on my horn: Mine has 4" hanging down below the #1 knuckle, so if everything was turned to head strictly uphill, the slide crook would be 4" higher, coming to (roughly) the bottom of the arch of the smaller top bow (assuming that your valveset ends up in the same spot (vertically) that mine did. That would give you about 4" between the top of the crook and the bell. Not a lot of "pull".

Additionally, reaching 'over' the top bow is pretty uncomfortable to me on this horn, plus having your hand between the slide crook and the bell would further limit your "pull range". As my horn sits now, reaching through the horn is very comfortable. I don't need to move that slide much at all, but it's a comfy spot to put your hand. I've often thought of putting a cup holder in that spot...


I'll send a closer, higher resolution picture later today via email. In this picture the slide is pulled out as far as it should go without worrying about it flying out on a fortissimo Ab. The slide legs are 4" long, so it would be close if I were to make everything an 'uppy'

FDB9900E-C424-4458-B1B8-E3EE4DB83896.jpeg (24.86 KiB) Viewed 1460 times

[York-aholic]

I'd suspect that York supplied the larger parts to the new Holton company, at least at the beginning, and maybe as Holton grew, he had his own mandrels made to produce his own parts, based closely on the York formula.

I'm starting to wonder the same about Lyon & Healy perhaps selling 6/4 bells and the big bows to Holton in the early years, until Holton could get mandrels made. A few posts above this I mentioned a 6/4 L&H bell that very much matches a Holton 340/345 bell (and I'm assuming the earlier Holton Mammoth). Both companies were in Chicago and the L&H 6/4 seems to predate the H. Mammoth.

It would be interesting reading to look back at these companies correspondence to each other. Anyone have a stack of their old letters sitting in a shoe box in their closet?

[bloke]

Your additional information, which I completely believe to be accurate - based on your vast experience in this particular area, limits the scope of my supposition, but doesn’t completely rule out the possibility of Holton just out and out buying (… OK…) just the bell and large bow mandrels.
It’s quite obvious that Holton created their own valve section for this instrument from scratch, so likely the inner bows as well… After all, they had been in business for quite a few years, and had quite a few jigs laying around.
The thing that keeps me thinking that Holton bought (at least) those bell and large bow molds and manuals at “fire sale“ prices, is because that model seem to appear right around the same time that York was absolutely fading away.
Most of us are young enough to remember when Selmer (during the era it was owned by Philips) bought some of the (shuttered at the end of the 1970’s) F. E. Olds stuff…and they picked and chose what I wanted, as well...
basically: just some tuba tooling, and some marching brass tooling.
Cleverly, Selmer in Elkhart boosted the dimensions of all of the pistons on those instruments by a couple thousands of an inch, so as to discourage shops from purchasing their Selmer-made pistons to keep Olds instruments working.

[Yorkboy]

It’s quite obvious that Holton created their own valve section for this instrument from scratch

On a tangent, but related:

I've had my suspicions for some time that Holton supplied the valve blocks to York for the two "Chicago York" tubas. No other York I've ever seen sports that vertical design block (I've only seen the angled "sousaphone style"), while it was quite common on Holton tubas, right up to the 345 and the demise of the company.

No other company, at that time (AFAIK), was making a similar valve block.

I can't imagine that York would go through the trouble and expense involved to make a valve jig to produce two sets, total.

As to the large parts (bell & bottom bow) it's entirely plausible that York supplied them to Holton for the entire run of its existence, considering the huge cost involved in fabricating new mandrels, as opposed to simply outsourcing the parts from a (friendly) competitor, and then selling them to Holton at its liquidation.

"just speculating"

[bloke]

If you happen to have an angled 3/4” bore York tuba or sousaphone valveset, I’d wager that the pistons (prior to multiple rebuilds) were originally interchangeable with those C tubas’ pistons...
...with the only changes being the angles of the knuckles connecting the casings, as well as the angles of the knuckles exiting the casings for the slides.
Think of the King 2341/2340 vertical valve sets versus the King sousaphone valvesets…same valves.
I gave GP some spare caps off of a 3/4” bore top action York body. He reported that those caps fit the CSO instruments.
Mr. Johnson may have simply decided to verticalize the piston array be more similar in orientation to a rotary instrument, as (rare) C instruments were (even up until the 1980s) mostly rotary.

[York-aholic]

Don’t know why my pictures are all going sideways... just turn your phone, tablet, computer monitor, or head...

1-3 are inline, 4th drops down for pinky. Maybe York went with vertical pistons so Donatelli didn’t have to reach as far.

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Side-unrelated note: I once saw at the Kanstul factory a York 6/4 top action built as a 3+1. Now that would be some serious reach around!

[Yorkboy]

Don’t know why my pictures are all going sideways... just turn your phone, tablet, computer monitor, or head...

1-3 are inline, 4th drops down for pinky. Maybe York went with vertical pistons so Donatelli didn’t have to reach as far.

F983A6D1-3973-4CFB-B3E5-B108FA358904.jpeg

On that horn (and the ones I own too), even though 1 through 3 are in a straight line, they are also canted on an angle from front to back, while the "true" vertical set is set at a 90° angle to the tubing and knuckles.

Once (several years ago, before I became interested in such things), my 712 was in the same room as one of the Chicago York tubas, but at the time it didn't come to my mind to compare the valves

[bloke]

The 3/4" bore York upright tuba had NO valves and almost NO slides...which is why I donated the caps to GP (aka EP).

The front-action 3/4" York sousaphone pistons (I've owned two 3-valve complete valvesets for those) were remarkabl...NO: extraordinarily thin/light, and VERY long - with super-deep spring pockets in the bottoms...and almost no (if any?) convex distortions in the cross-ports.

I haven't been around too many old-old (pre-war) big Holton's, but York are the only pistons I've seen like those.

...and ALL of my guesses may be wrong.
QUITE OFTEN, when I've guessed about things that seemed obvious (to me), it ended up that my guesses were totally full of .

Olds O-99-4 tubas and Conn 5J tubas are fairly similar, but not a thing on them is the same...

[York-aholic]

Once (several years ago, before I became interested in such things), my 712 was in the same room as one of the Chicago York tubas, but at the time it didn't come to my mind to compare the valves

Yes, agreed. I maybe imaging this, but wasn’t it you that said there is a variation in this between the 712 and the 716?

Or am I thinking of Paul Scott saying that about the difference between recording bell and fixed upright bell front action Martins? My memory is pretty terrible...

[bloke]

Speaking of which...
I was watching some of the Martin 6/4 folk (and I love them, and I love their instruments) insisting that the locations of brace feet and such noticeably affects the intonation characteristics of those gigantic things. When I expressed doubts, they schooled me by informing me that so-and-so says so, so I shut up.

[bloke]

ANNOUNCEMENT:
By next weekend, I should have a nice four-valve front-action valveset to paste on to this Holton body.
As those polled (as well as a nice person, who chimed in from northern Kentucky) are encouraging a fifth (rotary) valve, I guess I’ll be reaching back into my box of 19mm rotors and tubing...but I’m serious dead serious about mostly using it as a long semitone, and likely very seldom using it as a long whole tone. Spot-on B-naturals and low E's are more useful than growling low E-flats.

[Yorkboy]

Yes, agreed. I maybe imaging this, but wasn’t it you that said there is a variation in this between the 712 and the 716?

Yes, I did say that - the differences are very slight, but noticeable. The valve cluster itself is the same, but is a little more "head-on" on the 716 - also the mouthpipe bends slightly more around the bell, both probably having to do with the ergonomics of what was originally a fixed recording bell instrument. The set on the 712 was a little more "oblique", with a mouthpipe that didn't wrap around quite as closely.

Another slight change is the location of the 4th valve "branch" that arcs over the upper part of the instrument (the 716 has it soldered closely to the 5th branch, while on the 712 it was somewhat above it, leaving more room to put your hand through the horn to reach the 1st valve crook).

"truly arcane information"

[HoltonMammoth]

Thanks for looking into that.
The Grand Rapids York plant was shuttered (mostly, if not completely) about the time (1960’s) that Holton began offering these Collegiate model 19 inch bell short tubas, that – bow wise – seem identical to York B-flats (as well as with the Collegiate E-flats)...but I can only guess or assume.

They're not an exact match, but they're close. They were probably copying each other.