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Someone wanted their Miraphone 186 water key taken off.
Most people put a circular patch over the hole...but - when the purpose for removal is "to eliminate bore distortion", hell...the patch still defines a c. .6mm bore distortion. (Of course, "pulling any slide out just 1mm" distorts the bore as well, but that's another issue, isn't it?)
Anyway, with this removal and hole-filling technique, there IS no "bore distortion" - and it's just as easy as any other way.




Fingerprints have been edited out, to protect the guilty.

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The trade-off for not getting paid (to work on my own instruments) is that I can do things exactly like I want them done to my own things, and this is certainly not something that I would have done to my own instrument.

When people contract me to do work to their things - work for which I don’t see a benefit (perhaps work such as this) – I can politely suggest alternatives (such as “Leave it be”), I can just go ahead and do what they want me to do, or I can refuse to do the work. The second choice often results in most remuneration, and seems to often result in customers smiling the most - when they leave.

This particular (to me) ill-advised operation did no permanent harm, actually involved a bit of (beneficial?) dent removal, and the instrument’s owner has all the parts with which (someone/some day) the instrument can be restored back to its original condition.

Observing other players, quite a few seem to really enjoy pulling out slides and dumping water. That’s not me. As I’ve stated before, I prefer to open small levers (as many as required on a particular instrument, to avoid pulling in clanking slides around) and just let water drain out - without making a scene on stage.
A few carelessly drilled water keys benefit from having burrs removed from the inside edges of their openings, and quite a few people don’t seem to understand that the way to get all of the water to empty through water key is to blow gently - to only break the surface tension, rather than so much that it blows the water past the hole.

tofu wrote: ↑Fri Sep 03, 2021 1:50 am Is removing the water key supposed to improve the sound? or intonation?

So now they have to pull slides and dump? Not exactly the quickest way vs a water key.

I'm not sure I understand the why of doing this.

Funny that no one's mentioned "replace the crook" yet.

Dan Schultz wrote: ↑Sun Sep 05, 2021 9:58 am Funny that no one's mentioned "replace the crook" yet.

Obviously, it was NOT this (pictured below) tuba (as this not-yet-repaired customer's [184 B-flat] Miraphone is awaiting repair, and is NOT scheduled for a water-key-ectome)...

...but these Miraphone 6th branches are a bit more pricey than tuning slide bows, and require more fiddling around to replace (and are more of a pain to re-lacquer) compared to slide bows.

I did a ton of stuff to the (original picture) customer's 186 - which ran up a pretty good bill, and replacing (rather than hole-filling) and putting a finish on the 6th branch would have jacked up their bill even higher. Either way (with or without that avoided extra expense), the next owner can easily re-install the o.e.m. water key.