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My buddy Brian and me where practicong today after class on other peoples tubas....let me explain. Brian is in college (locally) and he was my section leader so I hook him up with tubas to practice on. Anyways, we were practicing on two Yamaha YBB-321's and bith were in severe stages of neglect. The tubas are plaed by two seniors that don't take care of (oil/grease) their tubas. We fixed the usual stuff...Oiled the valves, emptied the tuning slides, and Leaned out the valves. We could not get the second valve out of one and the other was very tough. I have had this problem several times with my own Yamaha 321 and finally fixed it after a year of delacate treatment and oil. I am wondering if anyone has encountered the same problems with their yamm's (any valves in particular?).....thanks much any hel would be appreciated as well!

Yamaha pistons seem to have always been prblematic...

the tolerances are too close and there's no space on the threading of the caps and on the upper and lower parts of the casing... so if the caps get too tight, the valves stick or can't come out. The tolerances require them to be cleaned very often of they get stuck.

I'm not sure if the close tolerances is a relative new idea for Yamaha but the old horns seem to work fine, they may have just worn better.

The new valve guides are problematic... I often see someone bring in a euph because it won't play but the only problem is that the valve guide was not put on straight (there's a another hold that the knub can fit in on top of the piston).

I live in an area of the country that is Yamaha crazy for school instruments. One of my tech friends says that regardless of the model, fully half of his time is spent rounding Yamaha valve casings, all the way from trumpet to tuba. Yes, on the older horns it's probably just that they've worn just enough. Some of the older ones may actually have some substantial brass in the casings, as well.

bloke wrote:That's not my favorite model...



...but the Weril model 980 dead-ringer copy (inside the casings) ONLY fits the pistons from JUST ABOVE the top ports to JUST BELOW the bottom ports:

no problems with hung pistons.

yeah... a little bit of spacing behind the threads would make the regular maintenace easier and wouldn't require force to remove valves.

i play a 321 at school and the 2nd valve slide is a small issue but i can get it out with a little trouble even tho i grease it often