The valve pedals on my B&S tuba are not on the same level/height. It looks like the rod of the linkage is made of two parts. See picture below (that's a picture of Rick Denney's site):
I was wondering if this is screwed into each other and if it can used to adjust the length of the rods and thereby align the valve pedals.
Does someone know...before I go testing and break something
I know about the screws and ball joints. The valves are aligned. The rods are the same length. The arms at the end of the rod (spatula side) are aligned. The thing that is most of is the angle between the spatula and arm. On my tuba (with clockwork springs) this part is very sturdy and not something I'm going to bend.
You can see (in the picture) that the rod on the side of the spatula is thick and it is thin on the side of the valves. The rod not one peace (I can see that the small end is inserted in the thick end of the rod) so I was wondering how it was fixed (welded/pressfit/screw). To fix my problem I was hoping that I this was a screw connection so I could adjust this length
Solved! One of the studs (on which the bridge is fixed) was bend. Therefore the bridge (at end where the 4th spatula is) was slightly closer to the valves then the other side.
I have seen a much worse case of the problem you experienced.
A certain well known boys’s band is associated with a Danish entertainment garden and travels worldwide doing promotions for Copenhagen. A decade+ ago they flew to Rome-Italy. Their manager very obviously is not at all a musician and cannot predict situations obvious to everybody else.
Result: Their wonderful B&S rotary BBb basses had the valve bridges crushed down into the valve tubing because shipment was done in the original B&S plastic cases. Which are all fine for most everyday purposes, but which will flex inwards when exposed to heavy loads put on top of them.
The air freight carrier would not pay any damage, as the general policy of that industry is not recognise damages inside a given container. if the container itself is not broken. And the cases had just flexed.
