Holton 340 stuff

[Sousaswag]

Hey, me again.

My Holton is with my favorite repairman, Keith Polito, for some "get this thing playing" work. Keith currently has two of my tubas with him for a lot of work! I am so very appreciative that he's willing to take on all my stuff.

Anyway, here's what it needs:

Bell - Fix wrinkles and DEEP dents on the throat.

Leadpipe - Re-solder, fix dents, bring back to round.

Bottom/Top Bows - Reachable dents without taking it apart (yet).

Pistons - Straighten bent stems, align them, ditch metal guides for those Willson (nylon?) guides. I haven't been able to find that top-mounting style for sale online. I know they exist, but they're unavailable for non-repair people, it seems??

Pistons - Vent 1, 3?

I also have on order, Yamaha springs and Yamaha buttons. The Holton buttons are oh so small.

I can get away without a cleaning right now. It seems to have been cleaned semi-recently.

What's in store for this tuba in the future? Well, let's see how it plays as-is. Likely this summer, I will ask to have it taken down and re-soldered at the BIG joints, and make sure everything is good and proper.

3 valves on a BBb - Limiting, but really not as bad as it could be, especially with the slide length on these tubas.

However, if I come across a HOLTON piston set that doesn't have worn-out, in need of a rebuild pistons/casings, I'd be tempted to make this big guy into a 345, at LEAST. I can't help but get tickled at the idea of hot-rodding a BAT like this, now that it's all mine. (German piston set would be exceptional in my eye, as well!!)

That said, I've spent W A Y too much money this year on tubas, what with the F tuba getting taken completely down and put back together, and then this thing (HAPPILY) coming into my life!

At least for this year, I will happily play this tuba *stock* and slowly have the big bows taken care of, re-soldered with more care, etc. Who knows what the future will bring with this tuba? If a piston set falls into my lap, so be it!

I also have a line on a big ProTec bag for this instrument as well. Something is better than nothing.

Here are the same photos of this tuba as when I received it, cross-posted here and in Music Chatter, just to remind you of what we're starting with.

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ALL pistons are in this condition.

[dp]

Keith will treat your horn well (but you already knew that.)

I suggest keeping to your initial list of repairs and before considering making a different horn out of it, spend a lot of time with it! When I got my 345 "alternate" fingerings and "privilege notes" were a great part of learning a new horn. Though that changed a lot when I had the entire horn blueprinted, it was a lot of fun when the horn was new to me!

Teacher at Ithica was known to tell students that when you can play with what valves you have THEN you decide if you need another valve!

[bloke]

I strongly suspect that the mouthpipe is an improvised one.

It appears to be feeding out of the #1 casing knuckle at an angle opposed to the angle of the casing knuckle.

This one (below) - to me - looks completely correct (whether oem or fabricated later).




vs.





I'm not attempting to "put down" your great find, but only (meaning to be helpful) point out things (which you may choose to address in the future) that you may or may not have already noticed yourself.

[Sousaswag]

It very well could be.

The receiver is indeed marked “BB-340” but that doesn’t mean the rest of the pipe is original.

In true Holton fashion, where it mounts up to the first valve isn’t cut completely straight.

I do actually like the height and angle of this pipe. Most of you know that I’ve sold many instruments because the mouthpipe is too low on most of them.

This is the first tuba that I can sit 100% straight up and be comfortable. Promising first impressions, for sure.

Regardless of if it’s original or not, this one seems to be put together pretty well. Keith showed me his (two!) 34X bodies and valve sections and it’s amazing the variation these have. The large bows don’t seem to be mounted totally crooked, either.

[bloke]

Also (at least, based on what I'm seeing in pictures) - I would probably NOT allow someone to remove that bottom bow - in order to repair its denting.

ie. "second opinion"

[York-aholic]

I strongly suspect that the mouthpipe is an improvised one.

It appears to be feeding out of the #1 casing knuckle at an angle opposed to the angle of the casing knuckle.

This one (below) - to me - looks completely correct (whether oem or fabricated later).




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That's the one I owned for a while. I still have those T-bar handles for #1 and 3 if anyone wants them.

[The Big Ben]

Here's a vote for cleaning it up and playing it as a 3v for awhile. I play mainly concert band music and, IMHO, a 3v horn would do fine. In seven years, I've only had two or three tunes which had a note which HAD to be played with a fourth valve.

(As a pondering, it would seem to be easier to add a fourth valve by using a rotary valve and tubes then a thumb trigger like many 5th valves are used. Adding a piston means grafting onto the 3rd casing. A rotor could be put into the tube past the 3rd casing...)

[Sousaswag]

I should probably have been clearer -

While I’d love to have a 4th valve on here, I’m not interested in getting another project going right now.

I can see it happening in the (far) future, but if that were to happen, I’d like it to be as close to factory as it can get, with a Holton 4v piston set.

As it is right now, I have my Tuono if I don’t feel like this tuba can do the things as a 3 banger, but I suspect it will do very well.

What it needs is to be played. We are getting this big guy into the best possible condition with the least-invasive methods.

Will I modify some things? Maybe. The finger buttons certainly. The valve guides, absolutely. And we’ll see how slide alignment is. That’s it.

For now, and for a while, it will stay as it is, and I will enjoy it.

[Grumpikins]

Sounds fantastic. Maybe an audio/video clip down the road.......

Sent from my SM-S367VL using Tapatalk

[Sousaswag]

Sounds fantastic. Maybe an audio/video clip down the road.......

Sent from my SM-S367VL using Tapatalk

Absolutely. Can’t wait to share.

[prairieboy1]

That is an excellent plan! Having it fixed and enjoying it for what it is right now is a very good starting point for you and your "new to you" tuba. I have two BBb horns that are 3 valve and honestly, I really could do just fine with them and not bother with anything else. Enjoy your horn!

[Sousaswag]

It's back! I just updated my other thread. For characteristics/playing/other stuff, go there. For repairs, mods, ideas, stay

Bell: Not wrinkled anymore
Bottom bow: Not perfect, much better!
Top bow: Reachable dents mostly gone!
Mouthpipe: De-dented, re-soldered, (mostly) round

Valve guides: Anyone got those top-mounted plastic Willson euph guides, or, could you point me towards a supplier? I can't seem to find them.

It's in good shape for how old it is. Keith believes the mouthpipe to be original to the tuba. It's got some pink spots starting, but currently nothing is through. With the amount of playing I do, and how often I clean these things, it'll be fine for a good long while.

Keith also believes it hasn't been refinished. It seems that this truly did just sit in a high school art room for it's life. That's probably what saved it from patches, valve rebuild, new lacquer, etc, etc.

Immediate(ish) mods: (summer?)

Finger buttons. Yeah, those stock Holton buttons are TINY. Yamaha buttons I had on order I cancelled, I asked Keith if he'd make some for me instead. Not right now, but later.

Vent pistons 1, 3. With slide manipulation required, this makes sense. I should've had him do it when it was in, but I forgot.

Slides: I'd like slides 1 and 3 to be very smooth. I know aligning these things can lead to a lot of other stuff, but for right now, I believe I'd like the ability to have quicker, lighter slide movement.

Receiver brace: VERY soft, not even really a brace. I'd like to put something stronger there. I like where everything mounts up, the brace is just weak.

2nd valve stem: Wobbly. If I tighten it, it stops. But then it loosens and becomes wobbly again. Probably needs to be fixed/replaced. This might happen sooner-ish. I'll mess with it.

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Again, for what I've got in this tuba, I'm VERY happy. It's completely playable as a 3-banger. 100% fine. Just needs some more stuff here and there that's not urgent at all.

[prairieboy1]

That's a beautiful horn! Enjoy it!

[bloke]

Besides the good job of removing dents, though it's not zoomed in, I believe I'm seeing that the mouthpipe tube was bent to fit onto the first valve knuckle at a better angle. Am I seeing that your repair person has done some work there? Whether it's the original one, one ordered from Gemeinhardt, or an Allied generic shop-bent replacement, it looks like your guy made a good Improvement...but I'm looking at a phone screen - so I can't be sure of what I'm seeing.

Anyway, everything that I can see for sure is some really good work.

As far as valve stems are concerned, as long as the female threads in the tops of the pistons haven't been defiled, there are some narrow diameter stems that are sold in the Allied catalog which are represented as fitting Olds O-99 / Reynolds TB-10 / and the Bach 879 version. Those are the correct threads - at both ends, the correct diameter, and the correct length for Holton 34X series pistons.
@tubaing's 345 pistons' female threads (if I'm remembering correctly...??) had - fortunately - not been monkeyed with, and I was able to install those stems on his instrument.

On some of those, people have dogged out one or more of those stem-receiving threaded holes to the thread size of King stems, so - if you've ended up with actually the correct stem, but its threads are too narrow for what someone has done to the piston - you might try a King stem and see if it fits. (??)

I've also found that it's difficult to take pictures of those particular tubas without the pictures looking distorted, but - from what I can tell about your bottom bow - it's one of the better made ones, as they varied in how well they were shaped when they were manufactured. Yours looks more symmetrical and round-bored than many of them, and seems to make a full 180° turn.

[Sousaswag]

The mouthpipe: I believe he did mess with it, got it mostly round, and did fit it to that knuckle better.

We did chat about the normal Holton irregularities in the large bows that seem to not be present with this instrument. I have looked at several of these things in the last few weeks and you are correct - that bottom bow is (mostly) pretty straight.

I do think that the first valve slide will probably need to be cut sooner rather than later if I am to play this in my group. That C is just too flat. Everything else lines up pretty well. I’ll play it on Thursday and report back here. It does seem to be better when I’ve got the ensemble to reference pitch with.

[bloke]

Yeah, of course manufacturers of three valve tubas do that as an attempted sort of compensating compromise to try to make C and B under the staff usable - as has been discussed at length and other threads.

To emphasize, I just hope for you that when that circuit is cut short enough to achieve a second space C, that it will still offer enough tuning/pulling range to pull out for the two pitches mentioned in the previous sentence. I'm hoping for the best for you.

Of course, it's not only going to need to be cut, but it's going to also need to be precision aligned and with the tubes fit to each other for effortless sliding.

[Sousaswag]

Okay, been playing the tuba a while. Here's what else I've found.

The vent holes in the top of the pistons: Somebody who did work on this thing before knew what they were doing. Each cork DOES, in fact, have a little notch cut in the side to align with that hole to get rid of that annoying whistle.

Somebody (NOT Keith!) soldered the second valve stem in place. I'm betting they galled up the threads and "fixed" it. It's now wiggle-wobbly because the solder is loosening. There is only a matter of time before it falls out. When Keith is finished up with my F tuba, we'll either make a stem or replace it (or all three) with those (Olds?) stems that fit.

In addition to that, we'll see about cutting the first slide. My pitch is really pretty good on this tuba, but that flat F and C are really annoying. I can lip the F, it's only about 10 cents flat, but the C is too far, more like 25 with first and the main all the way in.

Also, G and Gb (bottom line) are also pretty flat with 3 all the way in. I think I'll just start with the first slide for now. If I blow better, those two notes are better.

Valve guides: You'd think, with Willson and Eastman merging, it would be easy to get ahold of these guides. Willi Kurath responded promptly, and referred me to SE Shires who do have those guides in stock. Shires responded days later, I responded, then haven't heard back. Grrr! I just want to give you some money!

Anyway, I should probably get this thing cleaned really well too, but I'll hold off on that until I get it mostly settled with these mods and more opportunities to get it out and play it. The things I mention above need to happen before I feel reeeeealy comfortable taking it places. For your odd community band, it is totally fine. For the "semi-professional" (I know, I know) group I play in, it's not ready.

[matt g]

Too bad the days are gone where you could swing by your local VMI dealer and order a 3301 (or 3302) cluster.

[Sousaswag]

Too bad the days are gone where you could swing by your local VMI dealer and order a 3301 (or 3302) cluster.

That would be SWELL. I wish.

[arpthark]

Is 1-3 for C in the staff a stop-gap option?

Is 1-2 B natural also flat?

I don't really mind alternate fingerings at all, but when we start getting into 1-2-3 territory for the note a half-step above the open fourth partial, that's when my nose starts to wrinkle...