Tubist of Time--
Contact me this next week--there's a great guy, Mike Morse, in Raleigh who does very, very good work. He's a brass guy, not just tubas, but has done quite a bit of work for me, my studio, and the other brass faculty here at UNCG, esp. the horn teacher. I can put you in contact with him.
D. AsKew
Severely agitating valves.
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dwaskew
- pro musician
- Posts: 429
- Joined: Fri Mar 19, 2004 8:10 am
- Location: Greensboro, NC
- Contact:
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Lee Stofer
- 4 valves
- Posts: 935
- Joined: Mon Mar 22, 2004 7:50 am
Mike Morse is a fine repairman and a gentleman, and may well be able to take care of your Allora tubas woes. If Mike does not care to take on the project, I'll be happy to help.
At last weekend's SERTEC, MM Music from Florida had an exhibit near mine, and the representative asked me to play and critique the tubas, mostly Dalyan, all from China. There were significant differences from one instrument to the next in construction. All of the tubas seemed to have good response and a surprisingly good sound. The Mirafone S-186 clone looked to be the most promising sample and didn't play badly, but the slightly smaller and slightly less-expensive Amati/Cerveny 7/8 clone had better valves and played better for me. There was a fatter version there, remiscent of a Cerveny "Piggy" that sounded wonderful when just playing a few pitches, but when I tried to play some technical passages, the valvers felt rather unresponsive, sluggish. Upon further inspection, I found that the rotor bearings were loose on some of these instruments, particularly on the "Piggy" clone. Rotor bearings can be swedged and re-fit by someone that knows how and has the proper tools. The other problem I noted was loose ball joints. These tubas have inexpensive imitations of the European metal ball-and-socket linkage. We discovered that with Hetman #15 Ball Joint Lubricant, we were able to make many of them work rather quietly. However, if one of these instruments were to make its way to me, I'd recommend re-fitting it with actual Miniball links, which would eliminate all noise and looseness. I had a new customer bring in a Chinese rotary-valve tuba on Friday, and I had to attempt to reassemble a ball joint assembly that had simply fallen apart.
If you are wondering about the Chinese F tuba that some have reported on favorably, I did get to try it at SERTEC, too. I don't think they are about to give the first-line manufacturers serious competetion, at least not quite yet, but it did play better than I expected it to. With about 2 hours of lapping slides, $350.00 worth of valve fitting, new ball links and a good chem-clean, I think one of those Chines F tubas could actually be pretty reliable and fun. But, when you add $750.00 worth of work to a $4,500.00 instrument, its really not a cheap F tuba @ $5,250.00.
At last weekend's SERTEC, MM Music from Florida had an exhibit near mine, and the representative asked me to play and critique the tubas, mostly Dalyan, all from China. There were significant differences from one instrument to the next in construction. All of the tubas seemed to have good response and a surprisingly good sound. The Mirafone S-186 clone looked to be the most promising sample and didn't play badly, but the slightly smaller and slightly less-expensive Amati/Cerveny 7/8 clone had better valves and played better for me. There was a fatter version there, remiscent of a Cerveny "Piggy" that sounded wonderful when just playing a few pitches, but when I tried to play some technical passages, the valvers felt rather unresponsive, sluggish. Upon further inspection, I found that the rotor bearings were loose on some of these instruments, particularly on the "Piggy" clone. Rotor bearings can be swedged and re-fit by someone that knows how and has the proper tools. The other problem I noted was loose ball joints. These tubas have inexpensive imitations of the European metal ball-and-socket linkage. We discovered that with Hetman #15 Ball Joint Lubricant, we were able to make many of them work rather quietly. However, if one of these instruments were to make its way to me, I'd recommend re-fitting it with actual Miniball links, which would eliminate all noise and looseness. I had a new customer bring in a Chinese rotary-valve tuba on Friday, and I had to attempt to reassemble a ball joint assembly that had simply fallen apart.
If you are wondering about the Chinese F tuba that some have reported on favorably, I did get to try it at SERTEC, too. I don't think they are about to give the first-line manufacturers serious competetion, at least not quite yet, but it did play better than I expected it to. With about 2 hours of lapping slides, $350.00 worth of valve fitting, new ball links and a good chem-clean, I think one of those Chines F tubas could actually be pretty reliable and fun. But, when you add $750.00 worth of work to a $4,500.00 instrument, its really not a cheap F tuba @ $5,250.00.
Lee A. Stofer, Jr.