Need help identifying an old B&S tuba.

[ampersandman]

Apparently they added an extra zero to the front of the serial number at some point of time. An anticipation of increased production?

One thing I noticed is the the pictured Weltklang BBb does not have a wreath (is that what it's called?) on the bell. This is also true for the modern Perantucci series. Is this significant? Why did B&S stop making tubas with wreaths on the bell?

[Dan Schultz]

Apparently they added an extra zero to the front of the serial number at some point of time. An anticipation of increased production?

One thing I noticed is the the pictured Weltklang BBb does not have a wreath (is that what it's called?) on the bell. This is also true for the modern Perantucci series. Is this significant? Why did B&S stop making tubas with wreaths on the bell?

That 'wreath', 'garland', or 'kranz'... whatever one prefers to call it was just a mechanical element to attach a wire to the bell. Without the 'kranz' the bell is just a sharp edge. I personally don't think there is any advantage tone-wise over the modern 'rolled-wire-in-rim' assembly method. Perhaps cost is now a major issue and the bell with the wire rolled into the rim is cheaper to manufacture. I think the 'kranz' will eventually disappear for good.

[Dan Schultz]

I think the 'kranz' will eventually disappear for good.

Get real, Dan. If tuba players keep likin' 'em, tuba makers will keep stickin' 'em on tubas.

I don't like 'em. I've had to fix too many that were loose and 'buzzy'. Of course, a rolled wire rim can get 'buzzy' too... but they aren't as nasty to calm down.

[Dan Schultz]

....... a well-placed clothes pin will very often do the trick!

Speaking of clothes pins... I had a 1934 Chevy 'standard six' that wouldn't run in the summer without four spring clothes pins on the fuel line where it entered the carburetor.

[imperialbari]

When your 5-tet tuba does the buzz all by itself, it is small wonder that you don’t need any warm-ups before those barn-burning morning school jobs.

K

PS: Are there any self-buzzing-tuba-problems that can’t be fixed with a lump of chewing gum?

[imperialbari]

Garlands rarely are seen on French, British, and American instruments, whereas they are common on German and Czech instruments. The reason shall be found in different production methods.

Cutting a brass instrument’s bell out of one single piece of sheet brass is difficult in its own right. Even trumpet bells with their not so extreme flares start out with an odd mushroom profile, which is then folded, joined by a complex seam, and hammered, spun, and trimmed over a mandrel.

In the German/Czech tradition this process ends up with the metal being very thin at the edge of the rim. Physically not very stable and acoustically very alive. Very responsive, but also very easily overblown. The German/Czech remedy is the addition of a garland, most often out of nickel silver. According to a German expert the garland helps against overblowing to a certain point from where the sound suddenly becomes very rough.

Especially the British makers chose another solution to avoid the metal thinning radically at the rim. They joined a triangular gusset in the flare area by means of the same meandering seams as the main seam. Physically very stable, but for acoustical reasons not popular in professional trumpets and trombones. Maybe the reason for the odd grump in the sound of some tubas taken beyond the limits of their players and themselves.

Some garlands are made seamless out of one piece of nickel silver and only hammered into shape and then mounted on the bell by being rolled over the bell rim. I have a Scherzer trumpet out of red brass with a very wide nickel silver garland, which appears to be fused to the read brass in the flare area.

Klaus

[Dan Schultz]

..... Especially the British makers chose another solution to avoid the metal thinning radically at the rim. They joined a triangular gusset in the flare area by means of the same meandering seams as the main seam.....

Klaus... Many German/Czech bells are built with this same technique... a triangle inserted into the bell flare. The end result is STILL a rim that is too thin to be very stable.

Even some of the US manufacturers market horns with garlands on the bells. Olds made a trombone with a very heavy garland on the bell. There were also some attempts at totally rimless bells.

Some of the most 'interesting' bell-rims I've seen have a simple piece of silver piping perhaps 1/2" wide soldered to the rim. For some time, I thought this was just the result of rims that were broken and had been replaced with whatever the repairman had around. However, I've seen several of this type of rim and have come to the conclusion that some European manufacturers may have given this a try for a while.

[Dan Schultz]

That try must have taken place a very long time ago!!!

We keep 2 instruments with such a soldered on thingy in the house,one on a trombone which can´t be dated and one on a Eb rotary tuba which dates back to 1890 ,roughly.............

Happy new year everybody,


Kurt

Yeah... the examples where a trim is soldered directly to the bell-rim that I've seen are obviously VERY old. I'm thinking that it might be a good idea to try in cases where the bell-rim is destroyed. I've made several attempts at re-rolling a bell rim but the results have been marginal.

[imperialbari]

I've made several attempts at re-rolling a bell rim but the results have been marginal.

Aren’t rim related matters always marginal?

[ampersandman]

Hi all,

I still have had no luck trying to date the tuba or even find out for certain what model it is.

However, I am waiting for my new lever springs to arrive. The old ones had rusted onto the lever, making movement very stiff.

I disassembled the lever bridge in order to remove the springs, but ruined the original retaining rod where the levers are mounted on. It's been bent out of shape and the nut on one side has been broken off. I have managed to find a similar 3/32 inch replacement rod, but there is still a slight lateral play when I wiggle the levers from side to side. Is this anything to be concerned about?

I'm not sure if I can find another rod of a marginally larger diameter, but is there anything I can do to the current replacement rod to make it fit snugly and reduce the lateral play? I was thinking of copper-plating the rod in excess and slowly sanding it down until it fits just right, but it sounds impractical. Would simply filling the lever axle with grease be effective in the long term? Not sure if it would reduce the movement, but at least it would quieten down the sound of metal against metal.

Anyone have better ideas?

PS: I'm using my own terms to describe the parts, my apologies if I create any confusion.

[ampersandman]

The replacement springs have arrived. I have installed them and the lever action is much better. However, I have not installed retaining nuts at either end of the rod, so it slides down over time due to gravity. I filled up the gaps with grease, which quietens the sound of metal against metal considerably, not sure if it would hold up in the long run.

[Dan Schultz]

I've made several attempts at re-rolling a bell rim but the results have been marginal.

Where a section of bell rim (maybe 1" - 4" long) has been cracked or mutilated, I've purchased thin-wall brass hobby tubing (perhaps 1/16" larger diameter than the diameter of the roll of the rim itself) cut it lengthwise, annealed it, bent it in a curve that matched the curve of the rim, pried open the cut, installed it over the damaged section of rim, tweaked it to a good fit (pliers, hammers, etc.), soldered it in place, and tapered down the edges with files/sandpaper/buffing. bloke "just a sidebar"

I've thought about replacing the whole rim that way. Wouldn't it be nice if someone like 'Small Parts' or 'Rio Grande' would offer a split brass tube that's ready-to-use for such purposes? It might be nice to have such a resource for the purpose of keeping school horns 'alive'.