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Somehow - with Mrs bloke's help - I'm going to try to squeeze in a 22K restoration (as trade fodder) sometime in the next month.

So far, I've poked around upstairs and found a better body than the one to which the valve section is currently attached, and managed to round up a good used vintage (thick metal) lower mouthpipe, as these are expensive when bought new.

This will be an early one, whereby the fourth branch is made of fiberglass (rather than brass), as is the (not plastic, but fiberglass) bell.

Once I get the valve section stripped and dent free (with that replacement lower mouthpipe swapped out for the crap one which is currently in place), I'm going to buff everything that's easily reachable, and then have her rag polish all of the surfaces which can't be reached by the buffing machine.

The body and the bell both deserve a new coat of white paint. The clear lacquer on the valve section will be tough just about immediately after it's sprayed on there, but I'm going to try to do the body and bell really soon, so they can hang in the barn and cure/harden for at least a few weeks.

trading for [top secret]

OK...

Today, I'm trying to get this valveset in shape, so that it can be polished/lacquered.
Mrs. bloke has agreed to do the "ragging" (polishing of areas that the buffing machine cannot reach, as she has completed the university woodwind instruments, as well as some of the community college woodwind instruments).

This had a layer of ancient gold paint, a layer of grey primer, and (on the bottom) about half of a (obviously, re-lacquered at some point) coat of nitrocellulose clear lacquer...and thank goodness that we can still buy (real) paint stripper from industrial suppliers.

...so what you're looking at is the today-stripped valveset (with little bits of paint still in place, but the torch will easily dispense with them) and a chem clean job.

One of the three pistons was slightly "suck" so I fished through my box of Conn short-action stuff and found a nice replacement (no weird areas, and no sticking).

The ancient RE-lacquer job obviously involved a bunch of filing, sandpapering, and buffing on the lower mouthpipe tube, as it is (too thin) "toast".
These days, they are quite expensive, but I managed to find a thick/used one online (along with a new receiver, as the original was cracked below the tension slot), so I was able to economize there. The replacement lower mouthpipe only had a few small dents, which (duh) I removed prior to swapping it out with the crap-original.

Lately, I've had TWO opportunities to work with these Elkhart-vintage cast braces, which are such a pleasure to work with and so much stronger (as well as more flexible) compared to the new-era little-craftsmanship-required "arch" braces (which are easily torn away, with all sorts of other stuff - then - immediately trashed at the same moment the "arch" braces are defeated by young scholars.

There are still some things to address prior to handing this over to Mrs. bloke...5th branch dents are easy ones to remove, but - well - have not yet been removed. The lowest of the #3 upper return bows has a patch on it, so I'll be replacing that one with a good one. The upper #1 bow has a nice juicy dent in it. There are a few other dents, and the #3 outside slide tubes need both alignment and brace-resoldering.

The fiberglass body is "OK", but (in my view) repainted too many times, so I pull down a different 22K body (which looks to be either less or never repainted). These are VERY EARLY ORIGINAL ERA 22K bodies - with the FOURTH brace being parts of fiberglass body (and no part of the valveset (see pic, below).

If this is a boring thread, give it a thumbs down: (copy/paste) and I'll abandon this thread.

Here's the trashed/removed oem lower mouthpipe tube (now in the recycled brass).






So far, here's the replacement (used/repaired) lower mouthpipe tube with oem cast braces reinstalled and new/old stock receiver.





ONE LAST THING ABOUT THE CAST LOWER MOUTHPIPE BRACES:

There are three distinct sets of these: (ie. different individual sets of shapes, and not compatible with the other two)

> OLD 38K, 32K, etc. (standard-action valves, with the slighter-style lower mouthpipe tilted very far to the player's left)

> SHORT-ACTION style...20K/22K

> Pan American and LATER 14K/36K style (standard-action valves, whereby the slighter-style lower mouthpipe tube did not tilt so very far to the player's left)

(me...?? In high school, I marched - and played indoors - a 36K fiberglass, and in kolij I played a 22K fiberglass. I played a King BRASS 30 lbs. sousaphone in 8th grade indoors/outdoors - too heavy for me, and I put it together incorrectly. I'm certain that it contributed greatly to cervical vertebra arthritis...but KIng are THE BEST-sounding, as well as THE BEST in tune.)

I’m still fascinated by the repair posts. Keep them coming!

OK...
On-and-off, this all sucked up about four hours today.
(I often don't "kill it" on weekends, but I still might ...?? go back and buff on this - before aspirin and a hot bath.)

This valveset is ready to polish...
> no dents
> everything slides nicely
> valves move nicely, and I swapped one piston out for a nicer one

I slid that improvised brace upwards until both ends (via calipers) hit the "sweet spot": parallel PLUS the correct width defined by the removable slide
The LOWER brace assembly (between the tubes) I spaced and secured it FIRST.
"Who needs geometry...?? What a waste of time..."

I went ahead and polished it up around 10:30 p.m. and laid it in Mrs bloke's woodwind repair room for ragging around the places that the buffing machine will not reach.

As (not) seen, no pic of sorta-polished valveset.

---------------

I have a theory as to why the final version of the 14k/36k cast braces were different from those made in the previous decades:
I'm thinking that they gave up on players putting the instruments together correctly, and retilted the lower mouthpipe based on people assembling their sousaphones incorrectly. Moreover, this may have actually been in response to complaints from the majority of players or their directors based on assembling their instruments incorrectly and not understanding why they were having trouble getting the mouthpiece up to their mouth.

I used our three phase machine - which I don't use very much for buffing but use the left side for grinding, as the left side is absolutely a grinder. I put a single large center sewn wheel on it that's about 3/4 in thick. The speed of that machine is just a little slower - maybe around 2500 RPMs, and it worked out really well. I'll have to remember to use that machine more often for polishing that's best between the 3000 RPM type of speed and the 1750 type of speed.

I got out on the shortest/lightest-weight extension ladder and shopped the 22K bodies/bells in the (no...not the mysteriously legendary bloke attic, but) the loft (way up there ). I took Mrs. bloke out there to scotch the ladder and for someone to document the time of death - in case I fell.

I choose (rather than the others that I already had at ground level) this pair, as they hadn't been repainted (as the others have suffered from multiple repaintings (and were beginning to sport the look of an old wooden window sill that has been repainted over-and-over for a century or more).

Once these are scrubbed, additionally cleaned, and prepped, they will be good candidates for a new coat of paint, and their original 1960's pebble texture should still be sharp.

yes...I have the female brass connector for the valveset. I'll buff and lacquer it separately, attach it to the valveset, and - when the valveset is finally attached to the fiberglass body - I'll simultaneously epoxy the receiver in place.



Here's progress - so far - on the first-stage ("cut down") polishing out the valveset. It's time to pull out the wicking to hand-polish the inaccessible areas, as this is as much as I can manage to reach with the buffing machine. (Were it that I wasn't as skilled at using a buffing machine - too many decades of doing this unpleasant/ungratifying work, there would be quite a bit more hand-polishing remaining than there is.)
reminder: It was beat up, the lower mouthpipe tube and receiver were toast, it was covered with dents, one of the upper return bows was crapped out, and there was part of a coat of clear lacquer, a coat of gray primer, and a coat of brass metallic paint on this thing...

Check out the neck receiver: I've temporarily repurposed an 8-32 brass valveset clamp screw (yes, from this same instrument) to protect the neck receiver tension ring from damage. The combination of buffing heat and a wrong move (with a high-powered buffing machine) can tear one of these soldered-on tension rings right off that tubing.




There's still one more school to do (29 instruments, probably half of which are brass), so I can't just stop everything and pull this thing over the finish line. Again, this restoration is in order to be able to offer a really sweet 22K in exchange for another item - in which I'm personally interested...and no, it's not another sousaphone...not even a tuba.

HEY...' remember THIS http://tubaforum.net/viewtopic.php?p=93499 thread...??
I have TWO of these currently done up. ONE of those two will come in handy here, yes?

You have three phase there? Or do have a converter? If three phase, I’m jealous. I’ve passed over lots of good heavy weight machines for the lack of three phase.

At my location in Memphis the building had three phase, so I bought this grinder/buffer that no one else wanted at an auction. There was actually another item that was sold with it in the same lot. Someone came up to me 2 minutes later and offered me more than I paid for both for the other item, so this was free. Coming out here, I bought a converter that was a little more than large enough to handle this machine. An old man that had a welding shop in a town 6 Mi away from here hooked one large motor up to another large motor with some brackets and a belt and created three phase that way. Once he got the other motor spinning with the electrified motor, he had his third leg. If you don't want to buy one of those boxes, you can do that.

LOL...

I went out to dig into the last school's tubas after dinner, but I ended up going to Mrs. bloke's woodwind room and chatting with her while I did some ragging on this valve section.

I made some pretty good progress, actually.

I admit that this isn't a particularly interesting thread. I guess I'm excited about it because I'm thinking about what I'm hoping to receive in exchange for this instrument, once it is restored. I'll probably reveal that later.

I will take a few more likely boring shots of this thing in progress.

grabbed these off eBay a few days ago (arrived this morning).
The new ones (with no pearl) don't cost all that much (less than these, actually), but I really don't like those, and - again - I'm trying to make this be a really nice trade deal for the other party, so...

(It only takes a couple of minutes to polish these and shoot clear on them.)

When I lacquer finger buttons with pearls, I usually just take my thumb and go across the pearl once or twice and knock the lacquer off of it LOL, and then wipe my thumb off on a rag... very scientific.

When at the hardware store picking up an aluminum strip to bolster a new piano hinge for my 6/4 tuba case, I remembered to pick up some nice fresh Conn fiberglass sousaphone band brace tension screws...

..."Excuse me, young lady. Would you please direct me to the Conn fiberglass sousaphone band brace tension screws?"

Mrs. bloke got to her (woodwind) school repairs finish line a couple of days before I got to my school repairs finish line (which I reached tonight).

Today, she got the valveset in really nice shape, ready for one last dance past the rouge wheels (three different speeds: c. 3000 rpms...and I probably won't use that one, c. 2800 rpms, and 1750 rpms...I'll probably use the last two of those...and just to smooth out a little bit of smeariness in the way the light reflects).

I'm not taking any chances, so I'll hit it with clear very shortly after it's ready to shoot.

The weather is turning back from rainy too hot, so its time to look at the body and bell, shoot them with white and hang both of them up high - in the hot-ass barn - to cure for at least a couple of weeks.


The dime-store flashlight was used to check for spots we missed - particularly on the valve casings.


reminder: This had the remainder of a coat of nitrocellulose lacquer, a coat of gray primer on top of that, and a coat of gold metallic on top of that.

Getting ready to lacquer this thing, I polished the three bottom caps and three top cap assemblies and shot some rattle can clear on them, so that they don't have to be handled so carefully when they are put on the instrument to protect the valve casings from lacquer. They'll get hit with additional mixed lacquer obviously when this valve section gets sprayed.

It was extremely hot and humid, today.

I had some leftover lacquer (whereby nearly all of the thinner was left out and drying retarder was substituted - ie. ANTI-BLUSHING mix) and used that.

I had other stuff to do and customers, etc. I caught this spray job just before dusk.

It worked out well.

- no blushing

- I lacquered the piss out of it (considering it's probably going to get a bunch of yankee-and-outdoor use), a few little sags formed, I could whisk them away with my fingertip, and go back over those spots (ridding the surface of finger swoosh marks) by barely zipping back over those same spots with compatible rattle-can clear.

no picture: Clear lacquer looks the same as shiny/no lacquer (already pictured).

Unless I don't feel like it, I'll buff and lacquer the slides, buttons, tuning bits, and other miscellany tomorrow.

a few too many coats of nasty old white paint (with embedded and fossilized young-scholars' DNA)...
Here goes the orbital sander, and there goes what little was left of the pebble finish (whatever).

Here's some JB Weld brand epoxy for one side of the 1st-to-2nd branch joint which was loose, and here's some Bondo (ten-year-old can...still good) for the crack in the 2nd branch.

I might sand out the bell tonight, while these two compounds are setting up on the body.

bloke "Great. My workroom smells like Bondo. I've died and gone to backyard muscle car heaven."

Buffing and lacquering suck...

...but ya' know what things really suck?

Sanding and painting suck.

Beautiful work, Bloke, truly!

Somewhat off topic, I've been messing around with a new acquisition this morning, which also involved cranking the air conditioning down to 75°, so I could get a reasonably good idea regarding tuning characteristics.

It's now time to go out and see if I can get this valve section mounted on this body today, but first I've got a little bit of buffing and lacquering to do. There's a matter of the slides, the finger buttons, the (not yet glued on) valve section female receiver, and the bell screws. I haven't showered yet this morning, so I think I will buff all that mess, get really filthy, shower, and then see about getting all this stuff assembled. It's sort of a challenge with paint that has only been sitting up for a couple of days, but I'm going to use a strategy of laying in towels and such.

This job needs to be completed, because other things are backing up.