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Today was look-through-all-the-crap-we-collected-yesterday-write-up-formal-quotes-and-submit-them day.

Today was also there's-absolutely-nothing-wrong-with-this-double-horn-you-had-me-pick-up day, to which the response was it's-blah-blah-band-director's-son's-horn-so-I-trusted-that-they-knew-what-they-were-talking-about day.

Today was also look-at-all-movements-to-the-video-game-music-orchestra-concert-coming-up-out-of-town-in-two-days-see-that-it's-dreadfully-rudimentary/repetitive-and-realize-that-I-could-have-simply-read-the-show day.

Today was also the-behemoth-dog-broke-the-120-feet-long-3/16-inch-diameter-braded-cable-again day (good dog and good guard dog for the pasture animals, but Pyrenees freak out, dig under fences, and take off whenever there's thunder...and we just can't look for him two or three weeks at a time over-and-over).

Today was also Mrs.-bloke-made-me-some-as-low-carb-as-she-could-manage-Texas-style-(no-beans)-homemade-chili-on-top-of-a-bed-of-our-garden-grown-spaghetti-squash day.

Today was NOT finish-the-Holton-345-valveset day.

Right now (c. 8:30 - defacto C.D.T. 9:30) is crawl-into-bed night.

Slacker…

absolutely fascinating (not! ) stuff today.
(This stuff is tedious drudgery, but - if some of y'all like lookin', I'll keep snappin' and typin'. )

...The #1 slide glides "nicely enough" with no "lapping"), as it's properly aligned.

I shy away from super-slick fits when I'm fixing up something to sell, because some potential buyers might just like to hold a tuba, blow into it, and enjoy themselves. Further, they might not appreciate having to take care to avoid upper slides falling on the floor (when the tuba rests on its bell).
Finally, someone else - if they decide to do something later - can slick the slides (since they'll already be properly aligned), and - hopefully - without using very much sandpaper and mostly via some sort of lapping compound and lubricant.

Should you need a Holton 340/5 brace Mr. Bloke, give me a yell. I have one or two 340 valve sets with some of the short tubes still on that have small braces.

You are always so generous!

I think I have a pretty good little collection of Holton socket flanges, but the solid fixed-spacing shorty braces get used up on repairs for customers and building things such as the little Holton BB-flat instrument that I built a couple of years ago and so on.
Dan - out west - likes to make these. I will make things when I have to, but I'd much rather have them than make them. I also save broken ones, because it's also easier to grind a broken flange off of the lathe-fabricated part and braze it to a new flange than make one from scratch.

I have the slides done for circuits one, two, and three. Guess what? The second slide bow was not spaced properly for the outside tubes. That's a rare occurrence - in my experience, but now it's geometrically lined up with the outside slide tubing spacing, and it slides very nicely.

The factory did a poor job of building the larger bore fourth circuit inside slide tubing. I did a whole bunch of work on the upper #4 pair of inside slide tubes and they work nicely, I managed to get the longer of the lower pair of inside tubes working okay, but the short one on the lower slide is still a mess.

(Thank goodness I'm old, experienced, and am very fast at removing dents from slide bows. Otherwise this crap would have taken a ridiculously long amount of time.)

The short lower #4 inside tube is so crappy, that I'm thinking of taking a King outside slide tube (for King's .750" bore inside slide tube) and turning it down on the lathe to the correct diameter, since it's close. I haven't bothered looking through my nickel tubing, because I'm not going to put one stray piece of nickel tubing on this brass valve section.

bloke wrote: ↑Sun Nov 17, 2024 7:12 pm I have the slides done for circuits one, two, and three. Guess what? The second slide bow was not spaced properly for the outside tubes. That's a rare occurrence - in my experience, but now it's geometrically lined up with the outside slide tubing spacing, and it slides very nicely.

The factory did a poor job of building the larger bore fourth circuit inside slide tubing. I did a whole bunch of work on the upper #4 pair of inside slide tubes and they work nicely, I managed to get the longer of the lower pair of inside tubes working okay, but the short one on the lower slide is still a mess.

(Thank goodness I'm old, experienced, and am very fast at removing dents from slide bows. Otherwise this crap would have taken a ridiculously long amount of time.)

The short lower #4 inside tube is so crappy, that I'm thinking of taking a King outside slide tube (for King's .750" bore inside slide tube) and turning it down on the lathe to the correct diameter, since it's close. I haven't bothered looking through my nickel tubing, because I'm not going to put one stray piece of nickel tubing on this brass valve section.

How long of a piece do you need? I’ll look to see what I have in the morning before heading off to work.

Nevermind, offer rescinded. I only have tubing from a 340, ie none of the larger 345 4th valve tubing.

I'll manage. Thanks so much.
I'm not much into seaming sheet metal and fabricating tubing from scratch, but I'm pretty darn good at finding things that are close and altering them into things that are just so.

tah-dahhh !!!

(Water keys will be those European-made brass ones which are made by the same place that makes the Buffet nickel-brass ones.)

LARGER #4 INSIDE SLIDE TUBING UPDATE/RESULTS:
One of the uppers was cracked (I silver-brazed it), the longer lower one was oval (I had to squeeze it in the vice with a piece of wood ), and the short lower one was BOTH oval AND the seam was cracked and sunken (nearly end-to-end)...
ACTUALLY, the Holton tubing is so thinwalled that the oval tubes would slide in to the outside tubes, BUT [1] that's crappy and [2] I sorta needed to round the oval tube so that I would have a FINAL O.D. to achieve with the short-side tube (vs. "ok...It seems to fit 'purdy good' ").

...so what you're seeing (short lower #4 is a King OUTSIDE slide tube - which fits over King's .750" bore inside slide tube).
It's the same bore as the Holton. I took it's outside dimension down several thousandths (to .845", I'm thinkin') to fit in the/this #4 Holton outside slide tubing.
I futzed around centering that tube on the lathe for so long (to eliminate runout) that I should have just used a coarse file, a fine file, coarse sandpaper, fine sandpaper, and buffing. (It would have been just as good.)

Anyway, this valveset is just about ready to mount on the inner bows...
(This one was more challenging than most...Of course, previous "banked" attic Holton BB345's were EASIER and (duh ) I fixed them up FIRST.

hmm...I wonder if I might have this stuck together by St. Andrew's Day...(??)

re: silver brazing cracked tuning slide bows...

Do you grind the crack out, first? What's your method? How do you ensure the inside of the tube doesn't have any residual brazing material protruding into the airway?

arpthark wrote: ↑Mon Nov 18, 2024 3:21 pm re: silver brazing cracked tuning slide bows...

Do you grind the crack out, first? What's your method? How do you ensure the inside of the tube doesn't have any residual brazing material protruding into the airway?

- smooth out the bow
- dab paste flux into the crack
- hit it with the tip of a hot-ass flame
- fill the crack quickly
- file off the excess
- avoid filing away the adjacent brass

Others probably have better ways of doing this.