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Adjustable clocksprings - reveal steel wire in garland

Posted: Wed Mar 18, 2009 7:02 pm
by imperialbari
When I came to play my Jos. Martin of Würzburg rotary CC last night, the Ist paddle was dead/loose/non-responsive or whatever you might call its state of dysfunction. I guessed the clockspring had broken and started looking for my previously mentioned master solution for activating rotor returns: textile elastics. Looking for things not recently used isn’t my strongest side, so I didn’t find anything useable. But I got sleepy and went to bed.

Today I bought some new supplies of elastics and a little while ago I started mounting it. The tension became a bit stronger than the other 3 valves, so I tightened their clocksprings. For the fun of it I turned the tension wheel of the 1st valve also. The spring was NOT broken. However the screw holdingt the post on which the retaining peg is mounted had come off, so that the spring had relaxed itself.

I will maybe put a few magnets in the dust bin of my Dyson vacuumer to see if I can get that old screw back again from deep in my carpet, but for now I wired the post and got the spring tense again.

Nød lærer nøgen kvinde at spinde (Need teaches naked woman spinning) is a Danish saying.

Klaus

Re: Adjustable clocksprings - reveal steel wire in garland

Posted: Thu Mar 19, 2009 9:51 pm
by imperialbari
Just searched the storing area of that Jos. Martin tuba for the missing screw. The rather small screw may sink deep into the woolen rug, so I hoped it wass out of steel. I used a couple of torpedo shaped toy magnets, quite strong. The screw wasn’t found, but the rim of the bell attracted the magnets (or rather the reverse).

That kind of surprised me, as I thought the normal material for bell rim wires was brass.

Klaus

Re: Adjustable clocksprings - reveal steel wire in garland

Posted: Thu Mar 19, 2009 10:33 pm
by Dan Schultz
imperialbari wrote:Just searched the storing area of that Jos. Martin tuba for the missing screw. The rather small screw may sink deep into the woolen rug, so I hoped it wass out of steel. I used a couple of torpedo shaped toy magnets, quite strong. The screw wasn’t found, but the rim of the bell attracted the magnets (or rather the reverse).

That kind of surprised me, as I thought the normal material for bell rim wires was brass.

Klaus
Surely that screw is brass. And yes... all of the bell wires I've ever seen are steel. Those bell wires actually RUST!

Re: Adjustable clocksprings - reveal steel wire in garland

Posted: Fri Mar 20, 2009 4:57 am
by Wyvern
TubaTinker wrote:And yes... all of the bell wires I've ever seen are steel. Those bell wires actually RUST!
That explains why I have seen what appeared like rust oozing from under the bell lip of a Besson I used to own :shock: