tubas for Jesus - POLL ADDED !

[bloke]

A church's music guy was looking for a 4-valve tuba for their church orchestra.
Their budget was/is not large.
This is the Cerveny 681 that I had available.

A friend bought some stuff, and this was tossed in (ie. "Go ahead and take this, if you want it") with the deal.

Generously, they gave it to me - and (OK) I've given them some deals on some repair work...

Due to the condition, it was close to zeroed out in value, but no cracks (of which I was aware) and (mostly) everything here.

I've agreed to sell it to a church (slicked out) for $2K. It will be at least worth that, and it will be at least that much work to slick it out, but - well - $2K in my pocket beats a junky, 2/3rd FLATTENED old Czech tuba sitting outside the buffing room.

I'm trying to shoehorn this gig in, as I have a couple of out-of-the-way schools to visit, and this church is over yonder near them.

I've been sick in the bed (I'm sure you've noticed EVEN MORE than usual posting) for roughly a week (missing a close friend's funeral) until today, and I decided that I'm well enough to get up...so I've been out in the shop.

This bell (which might have nearly fit between a door and its threshold (slight exaggeration) is all smooth/round/symmetrical, now.
I'll probably re-lacquer the entire bell (this here thing) but only touch up some spots on the rest of the (mostly: shiny, but really beat-up) tuba.

oh yeah...
This is "step-up/intermediate" tuba, because it has [1] a 4th valve, AND will have [2] an adjustable thumb ring.

Anyway..."Off to the races..."

I will make you fishers for notes above F in the staff.

I strove to catch the light to show were the creases HAD been...but it's now QUITE smooth to the touch:



bloke "tornado watch (duh: 73° F. in the middle of winter)...Mrs. bloke is out for break/milk/TP "
https://www.accuweather.com/en/us/memph ... dar/351089

[2nd tenor]

Well done on restoring an effectively scrap instrument to use . Some pictures of the finished item would be interesting; well, I’d be interested to see them.

I wonder how well it used to play when new / newish and how it came to be beat-up.

Whatever, I hope that the repaired instrument gives many years of service and happiness to those that play it and those that listen to it too.

[bloke]

The rotors and slides are fine. There are a few crushed places in slide tubing - but solvable.
This instrument was not made during this company's heyday, I tend to suspect it was sold by a New Jersey outfit that was very active a few decades ago, and it will function just fine and look very good. Maybe, somebody at a church won't smash it up as much as someone did it at a school. These require less effort to smash up, because their sheet metal is only about a half a millimeter thick.

Today, I'm going to mess with the bottom bow and upper bow. I might even get the lacquer off of the bell today.
My voice still sounds like a sick person, but I feel all right.

[arpthark]

The rotors and slides are fine. There are a few crushed places in slide tubing - but solvable.
This instrument was not made during this company's heyday, I tend to suspect it was sold by a New Jersey outfit that was very active a few decades ago, and it will function just fine and look very good. Maybe, somebody at a church won't smash it up as much as someone did it at a school. These require less effort to smash up, because their sheet metal is only about a half a millimeter thick.

Today, I'm going to mess with the bottom bow and upper bow. I might even get the lacquer off of the bell today.
My voice still sounds like a sick person, but I feel all right.

Question about wrinkles in rolled out bells:

Is that mostly an artifact left in the lacquer, or is it in the brass itself? i.e., does removing the lacquer eliminate (or reduce) the appearance of wrinkles in a rolled-out bell?

[bloke]

Those creases hit the roller hard, because they were sticking up. The metal is now pretty darn smooth (at the risk of bragging, smoother than is usually seen after a repair such as this), and once the entire surface is shiny, those places will hardly show. I'm not going after them with files and sandpaper. That's just ridiculous - as well as ruinous.

[bloke]

The rotors and slides are fine. There are a few crushed places in slide tubing - but solvable.
This instrument was not made during this company's heyday, I tend to suspect it was sold by a New Jersey outfit that was very active a few decades ago, and it will function just fine and look very good. Maybe, somebody at a church won't smash it up as much as someone did it at a school. These require less effort to smash up, because their sheet metal is only about a half a millimeter thick.

Today, I'm going to mess with the bottom bow and upper bow. I might even get the lacquer off of the bell today.
My voice still sounds like a sick person, but I feel all right.

Question about wrinkles in rolled out bells:

Is that mostly an artifact left in the lacquer, or is it in the brass itself? i.e., does removing the lacquer eliminate (or reduce) the appearance of wrinkles in a rolled-out bell?

OK, aardvark...
Here's a portion of the bell interior polished JUST ENOUGH to remove lacquer, but not enough to remove any material.
I had two choices of light:
- so bright (even though overcast) that you would only see "light"
- ...or with my reflection (in buffing clothes)
With my reflection increases the chances of imperfections showing up.
I'm thinking that the scratches are more apparent than the ghosts of the removed creases...(??)



for general viewing...
Here's the bottom bow (which was also smushed)
AFTER Mrs. bloke whopped it a bunch of times with the 3 lb. hand sledge.
I followed up with some quick burnishing.
We refer to this as "roughing out" a piece.
It will be ironed smooth and shaped, next.
We ONLY used a 3 lb. due to the thin gauge of Czech tubas.
We found a c. 1-inch tear, but I'll braze it shut with silver wire - once this thing is all ironed smooth.
I guess I'll buff all the lacquer off of the bottom bow, too.
This "beat out" only took twenty minutes or so...We know just what to do, where, how much, etc.
(We've done it before.) ...make ten more minutes, if you include pulling the bow off the rest of it.
The rest of this thing isn't very dented up at all.

[bloke]

update...
We're still sorta "leftover" sick.
I puttered around for several hours before going out and doing this piddly amount of work...

' need more non sequiturs...??

OK.
This is a PREDICTED radar patter for a couple hours from now...
...which is about FOUR hours before the badass tornadoes are supposed to pay a visit.
weather-guy be sayin':
EXPECT some trees to be toppled, and - if you need your garbage cans - take 'em inside.




Arkadelphia...??
That's where Francis McBeth taught (who wrote all those band pieces y'all played)

[bloke]

Some pretty amazing winds are blowing, right now. The cable internet is out, but this amazing $200 Samsung phone is grabbing one bar of service in the super high winds and allowing me to post. I got the bottom bow nice and smooth, the solder joints around the nickel cap taken care of where they were loose from the previously existing smashes, and the one inch tear silver brazed shut, but I'm not going to download the IMGUR app on to this phone in order to post pictures, as I always post those from my laptop. Anyway, I hope we continue to have power but I'm sort of doubtful.

[2nd tenor]

Great progress, thanks for sharing .

Here’s hoping that the weather isn’t too unkind to you.

[bloke]

I have power still, and this incredible phone is still grabbing a bar of cell service. I'm wondering if the winds are dying down. I believe the television told us that they were up to 55 miles an hour, and that's pretty easy to believe.

[bloke]

OK...phone and internet are back...
Here are some bottom bow pics...
I'm still feeling a bit weak from being sick, but I'll probably remove lacquer and do rudimentary polishing on the bottom bow (and the bell) today.
I would like to get this gig in the past, and collect this dough.






I suspect - compared to some/many others - my repair techniques might be somewhat like my tuba-practicing techniques, whereby I go for results, rather than following a procedure or using a prescribed tool or method. I believe my approaches have defined that I've done more stuff in less time that might have been predicted.

[Username]

These Cerveny tubas have the potential to sound really good.

[bloke]

OK...
I could have really-REALLY picked over this bottom bow...but not to sell this tuba for only $2000.

I'm going back out there to get the burned and scratched lacquer off the bell, and then I'm probably going to go for a hot tub soak, some aspirin, and I might see about putting some stop rods on two or three slides on my Miraphone 98...or not.

I tried to get a good picture of the brazed repair of the 1-inch tear, but it looks too good, and I couldn't get it to show up.

I would REALLY like to be FINISHED with this thing before I leave Thursday afternoon for this weekend's subscription series...
oh yeah...and (now that I'm not sick in the bed) I had better take a look at that music...
(The prototype cimbasso mouthpiece has been scanned for production, and is stuck back in the instrument's receiver. )

[bloke]

OK...
It's aspirin and hot bath time...
...maybe a bit of caffeine.

If I stay with this thing tomorrow, it's "sit down in a chair and piddle with smaller parts" day.
(I like that day.)

[bloke]

After nine hours, the power is back on. Mrs bloke has been bothering me to get up, but I've been resting up from having been sick and working hard on this thing yesterday. I think it's time to get up and get back to this tuba.

Again, I would really like to see it disappear and turn into money.

[2nd tenor]

I’ve never thought of myself as lazy and I’m maybe fitter, and lighter too, than I was a few or more years back. However, when I’m tired then it's time to rest - well that or nature will eventually act. Being male makes me naturally stubborn, determined and pig-headed but sooner or later ya’ realises ya’ can’t do as much as you used to and ease up a bit - listen to your body. On another forum a poster mentioned how much exercise he used to take and how that wrecked his health such that he can’t do much more now than walk from one chair to another. I’m all for taking exercise and doing stuff, but moderation is good.

Sunday’s the Lord’s Day and a day of rest. Can’t say that I take as much notice of that as I should, but taking a day a week off makes sense to me ‘cause it lets body and mind recover.

Hope that view is useful to someone.

Darn fine looking work so far , really looking forward to seeing a photo of the finished instrument.

[bloke]

This thing had one of those typical karate chops up high on the upper bow from falling over multiple times, but Mrs bloke removed it with the rebound technique, and I'll iron it out on the dent machine.
=============================
UPDATE:
This is now done, and most of the rest of the piddly dents are removed. There's was a 3/16" crack in the brass (just past the edge of the nickel cap) left over from that upper bow damage, and I silver brazed it.

I took a look at the Cerveny linkage...
The carriage and supports are disasters, so (as I have some old Miraphone linkage, as well as Jinbao) I'll probably so some sort of transplant.

If anyone needs some genuine model 681 paddle assemblies, there ARE three here, which are either straight or easily straightened.
...I could use a little dough...maybe $25 ea. for them...(??)

[bloke]

4th circuit dents were easy.
Today is minor mouthpipe dents, a few #3 circuit dents, and working out a replacement linkage system.

If I can get all that done, I guess I could stick it back together, shine it up, and shoot some lacquer on it here and there.

[bloke]

OK...All the dents, creases, and smashes are now repaired.

These three parts were the worst.
The large curve of the mouthpipe tube was folded.
I'm tired of people telling me that the way that I repair these doesn't work, so I'm just not going to go into that.

The short piece is part of a larger cylindrical branch feeding out of the lower #3 rotor port.
I REALLY avoid cutting, but NOT cutting this would have defined a WHOLE bunch more of this forty-year-old (shiny) nitrocellulose lacquer being burned, so cut I did.





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This upper bow area (per typical) was smushed flat.
After restoring its shape, curvature, and smoothness, there was about a 1/4 inch crack in the brass adjacent to the nickel cap.
I supported the cap as shown, and brazed the crack. I'll hit it with a file/sandpaper, buffing wheel.





What are remaining are
- removing any burned lacquer (again: NOT completely relacquering the inner bows...nope, Nope, and NOPE)
- reassembly (except for the bottom bow and bell)
- probably an acid clean
- shoehorning some old Miraphone linkage onto this instrument
- THEN installing the bottom bow and bell
- shine up all un-lacquered surfaces, shoot them with lacquer, and call the guy about delivery/payment

I'm jealous of bloke.

This stuff is pretty hard, and it isn't that much "fun"...not after the XXXXth time.
Some of you sit in cubicles and fill out similar paperwork repeatedly.
You can resent your bosses/companies/whatever...I have no one to resent.
If I don't produce (something that someone wants ??) I don't get any income.

I put this stuff here because others like to fantasize about wearing clean clothes, no fumes (right now, I smell like buffing dirt, acid fumes, penetrating oil, and smoke from burned penetrating oil), no buffing dirt in their face, and being a "technician".
That ain't it.
Further, some who "work out", but their hands and wrists are only strong enough to hold onto their exercise equipment...
They won't be able to do this stuff - no matter how much they can lift, how many reps they can do, or how fast or far they can sprint.

"Brass is soft/malleable"
...not as much as most people's fingers, palms, and wrists.

Today, I worked for about two hours on the last of these dent issues.
I'll probably go back out and work on a trumpet or two, and maybe (??) a little bit on some of my OWN stuff.
For LUNCH, I discovered some left over chorizo eggs (Mrs. bloke makes scrambled eggs with cheese and chorizo for breakfast.
I mixed those with some leftover broccoli spears, and heated that up in the microwave.
I'm also drinking a huge cup of coffee...to try to fool myself into not being tired.

I really need to go out there and cut some more of that wind damage into firewood, and look at Dvorak and Sibelius (bass trombone parts - not music-writing programs) - for this next weekend.

[bloke]

I'm going to put off sticking the bell and mouthpipe on, until after I manage to shoehorn some Miraphone linkage onto this thing.

I found a Jinbao waterkey that's "good"...
I wouldn't want to stick it on a Miraphone or B&S tuba, but it's fine for this one.
(Someone had stuck a trombone waterkey on this thing...with a diagonal water key saddle.)