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OK, I was at band rehearsal sitting for two hours right next to two other Miraphone 186's, one older with S arms and smaller bell, and the other with ball linkage and the larger bell. And it didn't occur to me to ask to look at their horns until after rehearsal ended and I was still contemplating the difficulties with my bottom line G.

As we all know, the dogleg starts at the bottom of the valve block. There is a brace connecting to the bottom of the valve block at the top of the dogleg. Then at the other end, the dogleg goes into the nickel outer tube of the main tuning slide, and there is a brace on the nickel tube to hold it steady and parallel.

On my tuba, at the extended point of the dogleg as it curves around, it is soldered to the bugle. Is that the way it's supposed to be, or is it supposed to "float" between the brace at the top of the dogleg next to the valve block, and the brace on the main tuning slide outer tube?

Thanks.

Yes. Thanks.

iiipopes wrote:.... On my tuba, at the extended point of the dogleg as it curves around, it is soldered to the bugle. Is that the way it's supposed to be?....

Yes.

Thanks, Dan. I was hoping you'd post.

bloke wrote:If that part isn't soldered to the bottom bow on a 186-BBb tuba, it could well be that, in the past, some fairly heavy (repaired a.m.a.p.) damage warped the shape of that part enough to keep it from touching the bottom bow.

Annealing the horizontally-oriented part of it and giving it a gentle twist would have fixed that.

And probably avoided my G/Gb stuffiness. Yes, it is soldered, but probably under some stress, as the water key, which as we all know should be straight with the tuning slide on the handle and angle from the fulcrum to the pad and nipple to match the contour of the crook, seals but is not in perfect alignment with the crook, which doesn't help.

Thanks. I was hoping you'd post as well.

Ah, the Achilles' heel of the Mirafone/Amati/other European BBbs!

A little patience on the part of the instrument repairman, to see that everything really fits correctly there with no stress, makes a lot of difference. I had the trying task of re-aligning and re-bracing a really beat Amati 4/4 BBb about 3 years ago, and was surprised to find that it played virtually as well as an S-model 186 when completed. That dogleg between the 4th valve and main tuing slide was the most trying part of the whole ordeal. I understand why a repairman, particularly if he is not a tubist, would want to just shove it into place, tack it with solder and be done with it, but that's sort-of like just shoving a bridge onto a string instrument without cutting it to fit or carefully adjusting it - it just won't play right.