hesitant

[bloke]

I’ve built a wild contraption for someone’s instrument…their idea…
To keep the price down (and - at the same time - to also make it fit on the instrument), the shape of it isn’t traditional. Further, it’s an old “Harv’s happy horns“ creation, so the instrument itself is not traditional, either. It’s sort of interesting, but I’m a little bit afraid of showing it here, as I could risk ridicule.
(ridicule for something other than “my general opinions of things”)

What say ye?

[tubaing]

One vote for wanting to see

[bort2.0]

Show it! We'll be nice. Harv was unique, and it's be nice to see one of his creations again, too.

[Three Valves]

A Rube Goldberg that plays??

Show!!

[the elephant]

Is it better or worse than the 4th valve added to that YBB-103 that was recently on Craigslist?

[the elephant]

Ladies and gentlemen, I know this is not a contest, but WE HAVE A WINNER!

[iiipopes]

No pix - no horn. I'm from Missouri. You're going to have to show me.

[Tubajug]

Knowing the quality if your work, I doubt it's all that wild.

C'mon...you know we all want to see it! You can't put a teaser out there like that and not give us the goods!!

[prairieboy1]

Show us!!

[bloke]

A friend bought an old York E-flat helicon from Harv (c. .65X" bore)
He asked Harv if it could be
- made into a 4-valve
- have slides that could be pushed in or pulled out from E-flat length to C length circuits
- feature on-board "storage" for the E-flat main tuning slide, so that he could change it to E-flat, if he so chose.

Harv did all of that, and pasted on some sort of King (.687") 4th valve. It appears as though Harv used a bottom valve cap as the top valve cap...Whatever...

...so my friend then asked me if I could rig up something to switch the instrument from C to E-flat on the fly, whereby he would only then need to push-in or pull out valve circuit slides, rather than having to actually swap out main slides.

...OK...so I told him "maybe" - which he took as a "YES SIR, ABSOLUTELY !!!"

I put it off (for various reasons, one of which being "How the hell am I going to manage this?" and the other being "how the hell am I going to manage this without charging more than the instrument is probably worth?")

Rummaging through parts, I grabbed a bunch of .65X" bore crap that I had (including some ancient Olds contra crap), threw it into a box, and begin the "Apollo XIII" routine.

some seemingly-conflicting requirements:
- HUNDREDS of dollars (and NOT $1XXX)
- accomplishes the objective (C to E-flat "on the fly")
- fits within the VERY restrictive allotted space
- open E-flat instrument AND open C-instrument BOTH tunable

The SEVERAL goofy ("homespun"-looking, to say the least most) angles not only prevented a bunch of extra work (MONEY), but ALSO prevents the contraption from jabbing the player in the armpit, so...

Please don't laugh (or - actually - just go right ahead...)



The C tuning slide couldn't be allowed to "dead end" into the #1 circuit slide and (again) doing it more elegantly would have required more time/parts/MONEY, and would NOT have played ANY better.

...so one (if a SUDDEN change to E-flat is desired (as I made C "default"), one rests their left-hand fingers on the UNDERSIDES Of the valve casings, and operates this gizmo with their left THUMB.


A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE !!!



...OR:
https://i.imgur.com/WSoK0si.mp4

[the elephant]

An ascending valve that acts like a "reverse F attachment" in practice, if not in actual tonality.

Great!

[bloke]

Is this what happens when you work on too many Holton tubas?

[bloke]

An ascending valve that acts like a "reverse F attachment" in practice, if not in actual tonality.

Great!

I was in too much of a hurry to bother with worrying whether it would do "E-flat to C" or "C to E-flat" when tossing this thing together, BUT...That really didn't matter, because I was planning on grinding off the "housetop" from the rotor stem ANYWAY, to make it REVERSIBLE, which I did.

How doth exist this wizardry.png (3.13 KiB) Viewed 8468 times

[bloke]

Suddenly, several albatrosses are falling from my neck.
Next week, the doc (his name REALLY IS "Payne" ) is cutting on me and rearranging my insides to a better config (VERY routine stuff...Do NOT worry about me. Do NOT think "bloke". Rather, think of various Asian-languages words which mean "hippopotamus" ) , folks' projects - bit-by-bit - are disappearing from blokeplace and migrating back to their owners, and - pretty soon (hopefully) I can get back to slicking out "attic treasures" - for your viewing-and-buying pleasure.

[York-aholic]

Following your order not to treat your doctor’s visit too seriously:

“Cut him to CC and add a fifth valve!”

[bort2.0]

I Google translated "Hippopotamus" to a bunch of different Asian languages, and have no idea what you were getting at with that statement.

[bloke]

yet... I succeeded in drawing your attention AWAY FROM my personally scheduled slicing/dicing and TOWARDS "something (anything) else", which was my objective.
(Arnold Jacobs is said to have used this same technique, when trying to pull students away from playing neuroses or bad habits.)

I Google translated "Hippopotamus" to a bunch of different Asian languages, and have no idea what you were getting at with that statement.

[tubadude]

Joe, you did a heck of a job on my frankencon. Thank you for the great work. I'm planning on spending a couple of hours tonight getting reacquainted with horn. I didn't think the neighborhood would have appreciated me honking on it last night when I got home from your place around 11pm. Man, I really love your work and trust your judgement and expertise. I really enjoyed our hang time and reminiscing about our twisted and tangled careers. I look forward to our next hang. Good luck next week, I'll light a candle and say a quick prayer for your speedy recovery. Stay safe and healthy my friend.

[iiipopes]

[bloke]

@iiipopes

You're about two hours from this instrument.