I got the lower slide lined up several days ago, but the upper was off of parallel (on an only two inch long slide) by a half millimeter.
UMI had put a solid brace in there, and (obviously) didn't/don't build with enough precision to get away with doing that.
Well...the upper slide would slide in and out, but - well - if I'm building something for myself, I want something better than what Jinbao (etc.) might produce...even if it is somewhat of a gadgety type of instrument. ("If it's worth doing, it's worth doing right."..etc...)
I salvaged a couple of the slide tubing size socket flanges (from removed braces which formerly braced the valveset to the bugle) and made a three-piece which did the trick. I believe I ended up finding an alignment point between the inside slide tubes of something like 1.191"...and messed with the tuning slide bow until it accommodated that dimension.
There is also a small one-piece brace - that braces this upper #3 slide over to the #2 slide - that came into play, but I was able to shift that enough and re-bend its flanges to make everything look right.
I'll probably do the #4 circuit (should be easy) tomorrow, and I might even add some bracing between the circuits (to add strength, as - again - there's no longer a baritone horn body supporting this valveset). I seriously doubt if I'll get the mouthpipe and micro-tuning auxiliary main slide installed, but - once this valveset is all put together properly - the "fun" part begins, as everything so far has been drudgery (drudgery: ie. fixing a really messed up bass trombone bell section, fixing up a messed up bass trombone slide, make the two different brands of bell and slide fit each other, fix up a beat-to-crap valveset, etc...)
admission:
I worked too damn long (or started too late, or both) on this #3 circuit today. I did complete repairing, reinstalling the #3 circuit, but not until 4:30 P.M. and I had a brass prelude (double scale) which began at 5:45 P.M., the place was 50 minutes away, and they had asked us to be there at 5:25.
Thankfully, I didn't need shower. I'm not going to discuss how fast I drove on roads which were covered with ice just yesterday, but I was in my seat with the tuba and euphonium (euphonium was for Dick Webster arrs.' bass trombone parts) unpacked and oiled up at the agreed-upon time.
I bought enough inside/outside slide tubing (.562" bore) from Conn-Selmer to completely re-tube this thing, but (as I've been working on it), I've found that it's easy enough (with slide tubing this small) to repair it quite nicely (lots of careless and/or malicious dents, but - again - the price was right) rather than replacing it.
