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

[bloke]

...and of the ARTISTE-IC DEBUT of the bhlolkton BB-flat tuba upcoming on May 8th !!!

Check it out: traffic lights, and TWO U.S. Highways !!!

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ ... 132108.jpg

[Doc]

If we can’t be there, can someone record it and post it?

[bloke]

Standard fare is outdoors in a town square with five microphones, an “ok” PA, and a guy that’s “ok” at running it.
I dearly love all the players, but - though everyone is capable - not all five are “artistes”.
meh...Maybe FB live...if Mrs. bloke tags along, has enough bars, and can figure out how to do it...(??)
I am nearly as tickled with this little powerhouse tuba as I am with Covid the cat.

If we can’t be there, can someone record it and post it?

[bloke]

I WILL NEVER SELL THIS TUBA !!!

(Does anyone have a Miraphone 98 they'd care to trade for it...??)

[GC]

Will Mrs. Bloke have to bury you with the Holton, the B&S, and the Thor?

[Three Valves]

That looks Big Time compared to our Strawberry Festival in Olney, MD.

[bort2.0]

Will Mrs. Bloke have to bury you with the Holton, the B&S, and the Thor?

He said "I will never..."

Someone else though...?

(My belief -- you can't take it with you. Not even the kings of Egypt could take their treasures with them. Your family should absolutely cash it in and make it useful for them.)

[bloke]

DONE:

☑ synthetic guides fabricated (3-48 SAE thread), installed, and fitted

☑ pistons vented

☑ Yamaha springs installed (scrounged/used...because I'm CHEAP)...some that someone else asked me to replace, because the plastic was peeling off of them

☑ half-@$$ cleaned out the interior

☑ ends of water key springs NOT cut off, so I won't have to supply myself with six MORE of them, when I put a finish on this thing (because I'm CHEAP)

...so: IT'S OFFICIALLY "A TUBA" !!!

bloke "It plays 'The Ride' great...but (at least: for now) I DO have to think about the fingerings for E/B. It's particularly friendly towards Prokofiev excerpts...so: yet another tuba that makes me sound AS IF I practice, which are the type that stay behind here at blokeplace..."

[bloke]

Will Mrs. Bloke have to bury you with the Holton, the B&S, and the Thor?

I have a University of Tennessee Health Science Center (ie. medical school) donor card in my wallet, which authorizes them to pick up my rotting corpse, do weird stuff with it, and not-NOT-NOT-NOT return it to the family, when done with it (ie. dispose of it at THEIR expense).

I've also told Mrs. bloke that - IF she holds a memorial service for me (hiring some guy with a funny collar to say $h!t about me that he would be reading off index cards), that I will HAUNT her.

Your family should absolutely cash it in and make it useful for them.

It's all worked out in advance...There's a metal scrap guy who checks with us approximately once a month, so...

bloke "

You should buy life insurance, because you care about your family

...yeah...but the instant that I would create eligibility for that policy to pay money to my family, I would also no longer care about them."

[pjv]

Nice work.
How many hours of work have you put into it (including shopping, driving, telephone calls, etc)?

[bloke]

Nice work.
How many hours of work have you put into it (including shopping, driving, telephone calls, etc)?

Projects - such as this - probably eat up 200 - 300 hours, including putting some sort of finish on them...
...but I'm probably not counting all the hours required, and (of course) "posting crap about it" doesn't count...
...so yes: These to-keep-for-myself" tubas are "EXPENSIVE" tubas, which is why these "projects" tend to sit in boxes, whereas "straightening out beat-up tubas that I bought to flip" (which only need to be REPAIRED and not "MADE") require FAR fewer hours to morph them into marketable merchandise.

The 700 sq. ft. (15+m x 4+m) barn addition (nice-enough-looking to be close to the house, lighted, handsome windows, rustic cedar siding, metal roof, and with multiple gates, hay storage, and built-ins, which we made appear original to the rest of the barn) probably took about the same number of hours...except Mrs. bloke helped.

Here are a couple of "glamour" shots...

bloke "It's un-lacquered - to 'increase resonance'."

[bloke]

perhaps a tedious post...

...but extensive playing indicates (per a post in the main forum) that moving the cross-brace in the #1 slide (from outer to inner) will likely be beneficial (for more comfortably grasping the #1 slide), and that installing a steel stop-rod (Bach trumpet #3 slide style) on the back (out of harm's way) of the upper #4 slide will likely prove to be a good "fail-safe" against pulling that slide out too far - particularly when pulling it for (1-4-5) "low E-flat".

[Doc]

perhaps a tedious post...

...but extensive playing indicates (per a post in the main forum) that moving the cross-brace in the #1 slide (from outer to inner) will likely be beneficial (for more comfortably grasping the #1 slide), and that installing a steel stop-rod (Bach trumpet #3 slide style) on the back (out of harm's way) of the upper #4 slide will likely prove to be a good "fail-safe" against pulling that slide out too far - particularly when pulling it for (1-4-5) "low E-flat".

[Yorkboy]

perhaps a tedious post...

...but extensive playing indicates (per a post in the main forum) that moving the cross-brace in the #1 slide (from outer to inner) will likely be beneficial (for more comfortably grasping the #1 slide), and that installing a steel stop-rod (Bach trumpet #3 slide style) on the back (out of harm's way) of the upper #4 slide will likely prove to be a good "fail-safe" against pulling that slide out too far - particularly when pulling it for (1-4-5) "low E-flat".

Not tedious at all, actually informative and entertaining.

This illustrates two things:

- building a tuba takes a lot of time and patience

- just when you think the “punch list” is “punched out”....

[bloke]

I do NOT NEED all of this #4 slide tuning range, but (rather than restricting it to only what's needed) I just "fail-safed" it (to within a 1/2" of it's final extension), so (were I to get carried away) I won't end up blowing an "air-ball" at some dramatic "low D♯" moment.
...Could you imagine blowing an "air-ball" in "Uranus"...??
(parts: two junk/altered saxophone posts, some 3mm steel rod, and a couple of M3x.5-threaded knurled nuts)

VIDEO: https://i.imgur.com/cvy4O8U.mp4

[matt g]

There used to be a stop on my fifth valve slide on the 2165 that had been removed years prior to my ownership. For whatever reason, I want to have it put back.

[WC8KCY]

There used to be a stop on my fifth valve slide on the 2165 that had been removed years prior to my ownership. For whatever reason, I want to have it put back.

I once owned, and my sister now owns, a King 1165 euphonium. It has a trumpet-style throw ring for the upper-loop 3rd valve slide. It's easy to pull the slide right out of the receiver tubes if you're not mindful. It, too, could use a stop rod, and I've wondered if King once built them that way.

[MN_TimTuba]

...Could you imagine blowing an "air-ball" in "Uranus"...?

I'm sorry, but after years of teaching General Music, this strikes me as 8th grade humor.
And I still laughed.
Tim

[bloke]

Most of my humor is not much beyond the sophomoric, though quite a few still don't seem to "get" it.

[Yorkboy]

I do like those rod-style slide stops, especially for the 1st valve tuning crook. The last few I’ve installed I made myself (although the idea of installing pre-made ones is much more appealing to me.....!)