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Hi all,

Many of you have seen my various tuba switching adventures. My latest F tuba, the Willson 3200RZ, is a tuba that will be staying with me for quite some time. I love it. It plays so very well, and intonation is wonderful. I can't stress that enough before we get into the geometry of this tuba.

That said, the previous owner must've damaged the horn in the past. My best guess (as it came with harness straps) is that it has taken a fall or been stepped on at some point in it's life. You will see from my photos that the rotors are bent in the middle, the first and third slides bow out instead of being parallel with the body, and the 4th and 5th tuning slides are also pretty wacky.

Anyway, this thread is going to be dedicated to the future repairs I (and my favorite repairman, Keith Polito) make to this tuba. I would love to start learning how to solder and put these things back together, and what better way to do that than document my fails and wins here?

I won't be pulling this thing apart by myself. In fact, I probably won't. Most of this complex stuff will be fixed by a professional, but I would like to be in the room learning anything I can. This horn will likely benefit from new tubes directly from Willson. We'll see how that goes, and how much money I'm willing to put into it.

To start, here are some photos for you to look at, study, and give me some advice. It plays great as-is. The slides even move very well. But there are several ugly braces, gaps, bends, and joints that I'll have fixed when I take this horn in.

It is also entirely possible that I leave this horn like it is for quite some time. I will probably chip away at it every cleaning or so. I mean, get it cleaned, and fix the 5th slide. 6 months later, another cleaning and fix the 4th slide alignment. Something like that. I won't update this every day.

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Front view. Looks great from this angle!

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Side view. You can really see that bend in rotors 1 and 2.

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WACKY lower 4th loop and 5th tubes.

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3rd slide also not completely straight. Jury's still out on whether this is normal or not. There sure isn't a lot of room for it to even be completely straight, especially with the thumb ring being where it is. That said, it's been re-soldered. The joints where it meets the rotor are messy. Very messy.

Interesting damage... but my opinion, don't mess with it unless it is causing problems, has pinched tubing, etc.

You fully approve of the way it plays. Do the potential benefits of these repairs outweigh the risks of the tuba being not as good when reassembled?

I know it's hard to see the imperfect things, but if you pretend it's 50 or 70 years old (or whatever), there would absolutely be some weird "how on earth..." damage, and probably in places that are hard to access.

I'll go a step further than bort: you should throw that horn in the trash (tell me which dumpster for verification purposes) and get a new one

TheHatTuba wrote: ↑Mon Sep 04, 2023 9:51 am I'll go a step further than bort: you should throw that horn in the trash (tell me which dumpster for verification purposes) and get a new one

And I am not beyond a lil' dumpster diving...

I owned one of those for a bit.

I had not been damaged - but it had been "weirded", and someone (via Jinbao parts) tried their hand at "un-weirding".

I paid through the nose for some oem parts, put it back bone-stock (other than buying the genuine Kurath parts to convert from L.H. 5th to R.H. 5th), and sold it to (I'm thinking...??) a young Californian.

Those instruments play "strong" (both regarding resonance, as well as their demands on human hands).

If your rotors look like these, I believe (were it me) I would remove this material - which both obstructs the bore and adds weight/mass right where they are not desired.



The person who owned the rotors - shown in the picture - did just that (at my suggestion) and (unless I misunderstood...??) it did lighten up the action.

Would the modified ones be called MAW rotors or normal rotors? Maybe bloke rotors?

bloke wrote: ↑Mon Sep 04, 2023 1:53 pm I owned one of those for a bit.

I had not been damaged - but it had been "weirded", and someone (via Jinbao parts) tried their hand at "un-weirding".

I paid through the nose for some oem parts, put it back bone-stock (other than buying the genuine Kurath parts to convert from L.H. 5th to R.H. 5th), and sold it to (I'm thinking...??) a young Californian.

Those instruments play "strong" (both regarding resonance, as well as their demands on human hands).

If your rotors look like these, I believe (were it me) I would remove this material - which both obstructs the bore and adds weight/mass right where they are not desired.



The person who owned the rotors - shown in the picture - did just that (at my suggestion) and (unless I misunderstood...??) it did lighten up the action.

This is on my list. Likely one of the first things I will do.

TheHatTuba wrote: ↑Mon Sep 04, 2023 2:36 pm Would the modified ones be called MAW rotors or normal rotors? Maybe bloke rotors?

I had Martin Wilk do this work to my 3050RZ (rotary big CC tuba). Only wish I had done it sooner.

I would not call them MAW rotors... those DO exisrotors? I think for the sole purpose of being the fifth valve on Lee's custom CC builds. Lee told me details about it a while ago, but I just don't remember.

@Lee Stofer -- what is a MAW rotor?

For traditional rotors (unless non-traditional - ie. some sort of 3D interior routing) to actually completely maintain the bore (two dimensional area) of the tubing feeding into them, they must me considerably larger in diameter than most any of the rotors whereby those who market them intimate (often: in vague language) that this is occurring. Most rotors aren't even 2X's the diameter of the bore and - since something needs to be there to hold them together in the center - 2X's is nowhere near enough diameter to achieve that.

I don't think I took a very good pictures of my rotors after Martin worked on them, but I'll see what I can find. At one point, I had even considered completely removing the rotors and replacing them with a new set from Voigt or Meinelschmidt. That way, I could also get a new set of linkages that were new and lightweight and made sense.

As kind as I can be... I don't think Willson understands a whole lot about building rotary tubas, because they build so few of them. IIRC, the first rotary tuba was at the request of a certain professional, and Willi went on to make a few other variants (at least, I think that's true...?)

My 3050 project was driven not only by not liking those rotors and linkages, but also to solve the valve section being so dang high up on the horn.

In the end, I loved how it sounded and played, but it was going to take so much physical work to replace and rebuild the things that I didn't like, it wasn't worth it. I knew it wouldn't be a tuba that I would keep forever, so anything that I put into it would need to be costs I could recover later... and for all the stuff I just described above, it made every bit of sense to sell it and let someone else love it just the way it is.

Later on, I tried a piston 3050, and the difference in sound was not that much, but the difference in everything physically was completely better. You could tell right away the difference in the amount of design experience and refinement.

I doubt you will ever see Many new Wilson rotary tubas. I'm pretty sure they would still custom build one if you ordered it and paid a huge cost, I just don't think anybody will ever order 1 again. Far too many other options

bort2.0 wrote: ↑Tue Sep 05, 2023 12:14 pm I doubt you will ever see Many new Wilson rotary tubas. I'm pretty sure they would still custom build one if you ordered it and paid a huge cost, I just don't think anybody will ever order 1 again. Far too many other options

There's also the Eastman acquisition piece of the puzzle. Who knows what Willson will do next.

Keith actually pointed out the stuff wrong with the horn when I bought it. However, we both agree it’s significantly better than the piston version.

I think bort is probably right. I’ve never played a 3050rz, but I do see what he means. This horn works fine, but I personally believe they should never have been optioned with a right thumb fifth. How it is now, there’s no way my thumb would be happy.

Maybe that’s part of the issue?

yes... but was waiting for you to say it, just in case it wasn't an issue with you

- left hand fifth valve
- right hand #1 slide trigger

would work

I´ve been to Flums, Switzerland the other day to turn in my 6400 RZ5 for a checkup.
Took advantage of the opportunity to test the horns they had in their showroom.

They had several piston and rotary horns of all kinds of sizes.
Each of these rotaries worked better than mine, so I had a chat with Herr Kurath if they happened to alter valve design over the past 14 years, which he declined. So valve design as well as mechanical measurements (lever lengths resulting in valve throw) are the same.

I asked them to check the springs, though, which seemed to be of different material (Wire strength) on the new ones.

He showed me one of those https://www.willson.ch/content/news/das-caidex-ventil, which they make for trombone only, so far. They actually look like the 3D-model on that site.
THIS design has potential to solve some problems, I believe, since a) mass is GREATLY reduced and b) the issue raised by Bloke is adressed.
They actually design an elliptical pathway with varying measurements (height/width of non-circular opening) but constant cross section (number of square-inches). Too bad they haven´t had opportunity to do the R&D for a tuba version, yet.

Does anybody have any really good side-view photos of this particular model of tuba?

I ask so I can look at the geometry of a horn in better shape, and provide some reference photos to my repairman when we discuss this tuba in the coming weeks.

I'm looking for the view from the bell-side in particular, to see where that third valve slide naturally is supposed to sit.

I know rotors 1 and 2 have a bend out towards the front of the horn. Rotor 1 is more significantly bent at an angle. Rotor 3's knuckle into rotor 2 is slightly bent outward. 3 to 4, and 4 to 5 seem fine.

In this image, you can see the significant bend outward with rotor 1. I marked where I think that slide should live with a crude yellow line.
The blue line shows where that slide lives now. The red arrows point in the direction those rotors are bent. THIS is the damage I'm most concerned about, and will be fixed first.
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In this one, you can see where the 3rd slide lives now, the bend marked with the blue line.
Where I believe it *should* live is marked with the red line. Notice just how close it is to the leadpipe. It cannot live there in the thumb ring's current location. That is because the thumb ring is in-line with the slide-to-bell brace. At a weird angle. I hate where it is.
Truthfully, I'm less concerned about the geometry of this slide as I'm not sure if it can ever live where it seems right. I don't think Willson has updated this horn's design at all, but I could be wrong.
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Here is the only image of a new-ish 3200RZ that I could find. Notice the new thumb ring design, as well as that 3rd slide. Mine looks nothing like that.
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I'm no repairman, but because I *know* this tuba has taken some significant damage in it's past, I feel that it can't hurt to straighten it out. Some of you may disagree, but at the end of the day, if I were to ever sell this tuba - and I have no plans to do that - I wouldn't feel right selling something in the condition it's in. I am also aware I won't make the repair costs back, but I think this tuba is worth it and deserves some love.

I suspect your repairman is a good one, and can use his mind's eye to figure out the way things used to be. I have to do that every time I put a back-o'-music-store goofed up Holton 345 back together correctly (and sometimes they weren't put together correctly in the first place).

Seeing what I think I see, I would probably use some unorthodox methods on that string of rotors. I wouldn't necessarily encourage someone else to try the same things.

Stick them in a bench vise and tighten until they straighten out?

I suspect those knuckles would flex much easier than those casings would flex.

Were someone to try to actually flex that string of rotors back down straight, each push should be followed up by a test to see if each of them still spins.