Building an F tuba

[AdamSummoner]

Okay, so, here we go.

With paying for tuition, and living mostly on my own while attempting to finish college and get a legitimate job, I have always wanted another tuba. The VMI 101 has served me extraordinarily well for the last 12 years, but a desire to broaden my experience has always been present. My resources have always been very limited, and been difficult to try out instruments.

A recent trip to Dillon's was amazing, broadening the spectrum of available instruments, timbres, and price ranges. However, these ranges are still well out of my own price range.

For the last few months, I have been helping another member of my studio procure parts to construct his own Eb tuba, sparking inspiration for this project.

I am slowly learning Brass Repair for some future business, but still have a pretty limited knowledge on the subject, so this endeavor would reap two things: 1) A stronger working knowledge of instrument parts and construction, and 2) An F tuba for less than my first born (hopefully).

So, finally, my inquiries to all of you fine experienced musicians:

If you were to construct an F tuba, what would you start with? A junked F, then fix it up? Is there a certain model that is cheap and modifiable? I'm sure that I am missing plenty of factors, so feel free to add in your own thoughts and questions as well.

Thanks in advance for any enlightenment you can offer.

[MartyNeilan]

Find a decent 4 valve F online for about 1500. If you want to mess around with repair chops, make the necessary (hopefully minor) repairs, then add a 5th or 6th valve.

[Bob Kolada]

The little Cerveny 653's (or at least the new 5 valver I played) are super nice. Fat interesting sound, great intonation and low range,.. Used 4 valvers seem to average around $1500.

In the $2000 range I have seen Yamaha 321's, Mirafone 180/5's, Boosey 3+! Eb's, Mirafone 183 Eb,....

So there is stuff out there that won't require taking out 2 loans.

[Art Hovey]

Not expecting to end up with a Stradivarius F Tuba, I would start with the body of an inexpensive 3-piston top-action Eb tuba; not the monster kind, but the small type such as a Pan Am or Grand Rapids or Couesnon with roughly a 15-inch bell and a long tuning slide ahead of the pistons. (Some of those horns have a tuning slide that is as long as the first valve tubing.)
I would find a piston valve set from a small-bore BBb sousaphone such as an Olds or a King, shorten the valve tubing, and put it together with a short leadpipe and a short tuning slide downstream from the pistons. After a lot of cut-and-try if I managed to get a 3-valve F tuba that played ok then I would graft on a larger-bore rotary valve just past the wide side of the tuning slide, with appropriate tubing for a 4th valve. This one is not in F, but it's the same idea:

If I could get all that to work well then I would add 5th and 6th rotary valves in the 4th valve tubing.

[imperialbari]

I am not so much with Brian on this one despite my admiration for his making tuba matters transparent. He is right on what good repairmen can do for rotor blocks with reasonable wear, but I wouldn’t put too much trust in F tubas hawked off in Germany. Even Germans speak of the sick register below C.

Art is closer to my thinking. Only I might add the relevancy of the tiny old British Eb tubas with model names like Westminster, Regent, Oxford, or Cambridge. They basically came with the same bell (less than 15") plus bottom and top bows. Some have the main tuning slide in the body. Somebody might be able to tell whether the wide receiver will take the wide branch of the tuning slide from a Conn 26K/28K Eb sousaphone. Some (Oxford/Cambridge?) have their tuning slides in the leadpipe.

Maybe these old Brits will be even easier to cut to F, if they started out being in high pitch, which was about a third of a whole step above modern pitch.

Klaus