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Early this evening I arrived at Lee Stofer's workshop outside of Atlanta to pick up my Cerveny 6 valve F, with Quint valve. Lee was meticulous about everything on that older tuba being perfect, from "brite dipping" the horn to cleaning the rotors and slides to pulling a few dents. He even took a crease out of my bass trombone bell while I was there. He spent HOURS making sure everything was just right before he sent me on my way with my new horn.

BUT here is where his true character shine through. Almost twenty miles away from his shop, my car broke down in a very bad section of town at around 10:30 PM. Being a couple hours from home, I was hesitent about having my 8 month pregnant wife drive down with my tools. I called Lee at home, and in no time he showed up in his F150 and fixed my car, while we fended off panhandlers and hustlers. (One of the nicer hustlers had earlier kept a crackhead at a distance from me before Lee arrived, while suggesting rims and window tinting he could get me for very little money.)

Thanks, Lee!

This is the front view. Most of the lacquer is gone, but I don't care. BTW, the horn weighs a lot more than its size lets on. The weight and the large bell throat help give it a very powerful sound for a smaller F. The relatively short leadpipe may also contribute to this, as the taper starts sooner than on some F's.

Here is the back view of the horn. The fourth wrap and part of the quint tubing is visible here. The quint valve lowers the horn a perfect fifth to Bb. Even without the extra valves this horn plays suprisingly well in tune. The low C is almost as good as on the 621 F that I used to own. Proof that they knew how to make decent F tubas before 1990!