TubaForum.net

I just bought this (Yamaha) shipped to my doorstep for $43.

I will sit on it 90 degrees off from the intended way and set the tuba on the front.

The height is ideal...everything: ideal.



I'm not seeing any tuba stands (which I abhor) this cheap.

The AMAZING bonus is that I can ditch the wretched venue-provided chairs - which are provided (no better options on hand) at some of the places where I work...

...Some of those venues only have wretched crap like this:

possible test run Fri-Sat (??)

quintet gigs on Friday, but (based on the distance between the seller and me, and the fact that I have to leave home at 7:45 A.M. to get to that city on time) I'm thinking that Thursday receipt of this chair/bench is unlikely...EVEN THOUGH I'd be willing to use FatBastard to play this quintet music (though probably my third choice of instrument for these little jobs).

The Yamaha keyboard thing (arrived ten minutes ago) sucks, as there's too much padding (seemingly a nearly 2" thick pad)...

...so when I sit on it narrow-wise, I sink down in the back (just as with one of those horrible molded "shovel-butt" chairs).

Of course sinking down in the back ruins my posture, and the tuba - then (resting on the front) - sits up too high.

I might pull the vinyl off, cut the pad down to 1/2" or less, put it all back together and see about it...maybe even put the vinyl back on with NO foam inside...(??)

bloke wrote: ↑Sat May 27, 2023 9:47 am

Rick Denney wrote: ↑Sat May 27, 2023 9:07 am I confess I find it amusing that a someone might think it dorky and cumbersome to bring a tuba stand but are okay with bringing a special chair, or even a chair seat.

I’m hoping Baltimore Brass will bring back their stand—they are trying to but there’s one part they need to find someone to make as I understand it. It needs someone with a CNC mill, probably, to make an affordable production run.

Rick “the chair seat isn’t the right height for me” Denney

- I'm looking for someone's old upholstery-stressed pro-grade drummer's throne (to use the mechanical metal underparts and its compact quadra-pod base to support this seat.

Why not just build the seat, with a strap and buckle to quickly secure itself on any chair? It would store flat, and be considerably lighter.

I think I'm going to build a wood frame out of fairly small gauge wood gorilla glued together and stapled together that's the same size as that pad with a thin foam rubber pad on top that will make the thing I'll build it the same size as the pad that I'm discarding. The the vinyl is stapled in around the bottom, so all I have to do is pry the staples out, build my little box - with a perhaps a 1/8 inch thick plywood top - and a little bit of foam rubber, and then put it back together. I'll get away with a 1/8 inch top by putting a couple of bracing sticks across. Obviously I wasn't planning on having to partially build the thing, but it won't be the first time. You've seen all my Frankenposts.

The white way-too-thick/way-too-soft pad (the cheapest/softest grade of foam rubber) measures 2-1/8 inches thick.

The other pictures (even though no explanation needed, but here goes) are the removed staples, the bench with the upholstery removed, the vinyl upholstery (inside upside-down view), and the underside of the bench (extremely low-grade coarse nylon cloth, to cover up the edges of the stapled-down vinyl upholstery).

I'm going to build a Gorilla-Glued and air-stapled substitute (for the foam rubber) frame of 1"x2" lumber (actual: 3/4" x 1-1/2") with cross braces, rasped rounded corners, a piece of 1/8" thick lauan plywood on top (or perhaps 3/16" thick plywood) and EITHER a thin pad of dense (charcoal gray) foam rubber on top, OR a few layers of styrofoam cloth (as we've all seen wrapped around things such as laptop computers as packing material).

Once stapled back together, it should look the same as before and be just as tall (yet stiff, and barely padded) as before.

I actually have this extremely dense (styrofoam?) black thing that I bought somewhere (Humes and Berg...??) which is ALMOST the right size, the the narrow dimension is about 1-1/2 inches too narrow...If I added wood to make up the difference, I suspect that I would feel that edge, and would care for it...but MAYBE...?? I will insert it WITHIN the 1X2 frame to support the thing plywood top. Again, that weird black thing is VERY dense, VERY stiff, but doesn't weigh much at all.

Anyway...
Even though the thing is now c. 2 inches shorter, AT LEAST it's now stuff and (being careful around those Hillman pronged nuts) I can now effectively TEST this thing with my butt on the back and FatBastard on the front.

The friendly-to-me community band - which allows me to come-and-go - was where I tested out this keyboard bench in other-than-home-practice situations. I did this last night, because one of the horn players in that band is also a band director, and I had three new euphoniums to deliver to them. Yes @YorkNumber3.0, they were unbelievably excellent JP euphoniums. Anyway, none of the other tuba players (??) were there, so that made it extra fun, because I could completely control the tuba section's volume, attacks, the way the sound would taper off at the ends of beats when playing marches, and all sorts of things which one cannot control when there's a tuba section.

Anyway, the portable keyboard bench works out just fine - supporting both my not-small rear end and the large tuba on the same surface, and I think I'm not going to build it up to its original height, but just put a 3/8" dense foam rubber pad (found ond eBay) on top of the really densely-tempered Masonite platform, put the vinyl upholstery back on, and just let it be an inch and a half shorter, which is plenty tall and ends up being the height of a standard chair.

I'm good, and it's all good...I'm just keeping the nonsense going...extending the joke/troll/whatever-it-is...

I just wish that the factory that JP uses had more R&D capacity. New models (and not just of tubas) are slow in coming.
JP REALLY needs another C tuba OTHER THAN a Hirsbrunner/Adams 392 (aka "HB-21") knock-off...and regardless of the fact that it's a REALLY well-made knock-off. I'm just not sure how widespread (in the year 2023) the appeal is for that model/design. The owners started running their mouths about "a big C". I told them (attempting to put my biases and my recent B-flat fascination aside) that the market is flooded with Chinese Yorkyphones - with the pricing being "a race to the bottom". (IMO - a rarity in China) their rotary valves are remarkably excellent (as is their rotary linkage) and I've been politicking for a rotary C instrument that plays REALLY well...I just don't believe they need to be a "me-too-er" in the market, and nor do I see it as particularly clever to offer THE biggest, THE cheapest, and THE most out-of-tune Yorkyphone.

bloke wrote: ↑Tue Jun 06, 2023 10:56 am I'm good, and it's all good...I'm just keeping the nonsense going...extending the joke/troll/whatever-it-is...

I just wish that the factory that JP uses had more R&D capacity. New models (and not just of tubas) are slow in coming.
JP REALLY needs another C tuba OTHER THAN a Hirsbrunner/Adams 392 (aka "HB-21") knock-off...and regardless of the fact that it's a REALLY well-made knock-off. I'm just not sure how widespread (in the year 2023) the appeal is for that model/design. The owners started running their mouths about "a big C". I told them (attempting to put my biases and my recent B-flat fascination aside) that the market is flooded with Chinese Yorkyphones - with the pricing being "a race to the bottom". (IMO - a rarity in China) their rotary valves are remarkably excellent (as is their rotary linkage) and I've been politicking for a rotary C instrument that plays REALLY well...I just don't believe they need to be a "me-too-er" in the market, and nor do I see it as particularly clever to offer THE biggest, THE cheapest, and THE most out-of-tune Yorkyphone.

Since you've gone off topic... a 6/4 rotary CC would be quite interesting, but I have a hard time believing there's enough of a market for them to justify development.

PT-6

I've already been pretty candid regarding a line of instruments that I sell, whereby I'm probably supposed to waive the British and Chinese flags and talk about how perfect and wonderful everything is. I don't have any say at all regarding what they produce. (If anyone has noticed, their line is really strong leaning towards UK tastes, but is slowly expanding into American tastes.) I have been pretty vocal about needing another C instrument of some type.

I'm trying to NOT buy ANYTHING...

...but (eBay) I just spent $30 for an additional hose timer (a portion of the garden wasn't getting coverage) and c. $20 for THIS:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/353209550145

I'm going to cover the top of this thing PLUS the front/back edges.

The reason for wrapping it around the front/back is - IF the tuba slips off the front (whichever end happens to be the front, when I'm using it), it will slip off to a padded side surface, rather than a hard Masonite surface (which would only be covered by Naugahyde). If I can figure out a neat way to do it, I might actually also attempt to wrap around the (long) sides, but maybe not (??).

I've also decided that - being slightly shorter is moot. It's still the height of a standard chair, and - using it with no pad, but with an old sweatshirt over the front of it (to protect the tuba), is working out well.