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Has anyone ever mailed part of their tuba out to be worked on?
I'd like to get my 1st valve (piston) vented and the crook on my main tuning slide cut down about an inch (the actual slide is only 3.25" long) on my small King Eb. I don't need the horn for a while, and since I don't have a car any possible guys in the suburbs are just as far from me as someone in another state.

Unless your tuning crook inner tubes are too long for the outer tubes, both inner and outer tubes have to be cut. Therefore, you can't just mail the crook without the horn, or, you can unsolder the outer tubes and send them with the crook.

It is the crook that needs to be trimmed, not the tubes. Hence the precluding/following-

Bob Kolada wrote:and the crook on my main tuning slide cut down about an inch

Bob Kolada wrote:I'd like to get my 1st valve (piston) vented

Power drill!

Bob Kolada wrote:and the crook on my main tuning slide cut down about an inch

Hacksaw!

I see the UncleBeer "hater poll" has been locked; someone oughta start a new one.

I mailed some King piston valves to a repair guy down in southern IN for some work on the stems, worked out fine. Isn't the valve casing what gets vented/drilled? You may just want to Greyhound the whole horn...to a guy who tinkers on a lot of tubas or some other bloke.

UncleBeer wrote:

Bob Kolada wrote:I'd like to get my 1st valve (piston) vented

Power drill!

Bob Kolada wrote:and the crook on my main tuning slide cut down about an inch

Hacksaw!
I see the UncleBeer "hater poll" has been locked; someone oughta start a new one.

Is there no way I can combine the 2?!?!?!



Bob"who always liked UncleBeer's posts, especially the BAEb line"Kolada

You'll get a much better job if you send the whole horn out, It's not like you'll be using it anyway.
mike

Bob,
I'm wondering if you really need that slide cut. If it is the original it would be very odd for it to be too long. Of course it could be a replacement made up or borrowed for some reason.

Before going for the saw, try giving the girl a good clean as it could simply be that the slide was kept pulled out for so long that there is a bit of build up in the outer tube. It could also be a bit of solder if the outer tybes have ever been worked on. (Inner tubes are not pushed all the way in when the slide is used for alignment purposes and some excess solder could be blocking things. .

Try pushing just one side in and turning it and see if one goes farther than the other, This may give some clue to what is going on and you might find that you can fix that problem yourself.

Warning to all - I have seen many slides wrecked by people taking the hacksaw to them when they don't know what they are doing. Frankly I think that anybody who suggests people become amatuer repairmen for things like this are bloody idiots and that goes triple when it comes to suggesting somebody take a power drill to a valve.

My suggestion is that you find a shop, or maybe an instrument maker like Schilke, tell them what you need done, make an appointment then take whatever train, bus, taxi, or hire a car, or get a friend to take you there and get the job done.

If you wreck things, or they get lost in the mail it could become very expensive and time consuming to get replacement parts.

Feel free to email me if you have any questions.

Ken

Ken Herrick wrote:anybody who suggests people become amatuer repairmen for things like this are bloody idiots and that goes triple when it comes to suggesting somebody take a power drill to a valve.

Time for the next "hater poll".

UncleBeer wrote:

Ken Herrick wrote:anybody who suggests people become amatuer repairmen for things like this are bloody idiots and that goes triple when it comes to suggesting somebody take a power drill to a valve.

Time for the next "hater poll".

No,

It's time that people quit suggesting that others risk making mistakes by trying to do things they are neither equipped or knowlegeable and skilled enough to do without risking causing damage which could be very expensive to fix. One little slip with a drill could pretty well destroy a piston which might only be replaceable by having a new one fabricated on a one off basis.

Though, if you like, feel free to start a new poll...."Do you hate it when Ken, or somebody else, tells it like it is?"

Ken Herrick wrote:

UncleBeer wrote:

Ken Herrick wrote:anybody who suggests people become amatuer repairmen for things like this are bloody idiots and that goes triple when it comes to suggesting somebody take a power drill to a valve.

Time for the next "hater poll".

No,

It's time that people quit suggesting that others risk making mistakes by trying to do things they are neither equipped or knowlegeable and skilled enough to do without risking causing damage which could be very expensive to fix. One little slip with a drill could pretty well destroy a piston which might only be replaceable by having a new one fabricated on a one off basis.

Though, if you like, feel free to start a new poll...."Do you hate it when Ken, or somebody else, tells it like it is?"

I suspect you either missed the in Uncle Beer's original post or, at the very least, failed to interpret it correctly and fell into the sarchasm.*

* sar·chasm ('sär-"ka-z&m), n — the gulf (chasm) between what is said and the person who doesn't get it.

"Smilies" won't cover the cost of the damage caused by somebody actually taking such "advice" as serious. These offerings of "advice" come up too often and the potential for damage - and it has happened as a result - should make one think a bit before giving it out. Maybe the intended recipient would catch on but, somebody else who has the same problem could see it, think "Oh, that's what I should do" and end up with a real mess. It's a bit like advising someboy to grab a razor blade and cut out a funny spot on their skin as the way to avoid skin cancer.

Yes, I sometimes post something a bit "glib" too.

If I recall Schilke is in Melrose Park which is an easy 15 minute train trip on the Metra West line. I don't remember how far from the Metra station they are, but an easy cab ride or they might even be willing to pick you up. BrassBow is a half hour ride on Metra's Northwest Line in Arlington Heights. Again a short cab ride, a long walk (about a mile I would guess) or maybe they too would even pick you up. You know you can also take your bike on the train during non rush hours. Not sure if you want to strap your tuba on your bike while riding through a foot of snow the mile from the train station.

Didn't mean to belittle anybody on a personal basis earlier.

I just don't like seeing people make a simple "problem" worse and costlier by trying to fix things they don't know how to fix.

IF you don't know how to do something, find somebody who does and see if they will teach you. Most good techs will be happy to show you how to do the easier things so they can spend their time doing the harder and more "fulfilling" things like turning a piece of crap into something good or restoring a 100 year old instrument to its former glory or maybe even better.

Ken - who spent a couple hundred hours taking a trashed old Kruspe french horn from being a piece of scrap into a very good horn - thanks in no small part to things Carl Geyer taught me - and didn't make anything out of it financially - Herrick.

“I have to have the entire horn. I have to have the entire horn. I have to have the entire horn.” That is what I promise myself to always say after I’ve given in and let someone send me something to fix without the rest of the horn. Yes, I understand tubas are expensive to ship.

After you cut the slide, you need the rest of the horn to form a jig to solder the slide assembly back together. A customer worried about his tuba getting damaged in shipping paid me to build a jig that fit his slide then make it longer to fit back in his tuba. I truss braced (3 cross braces in a truss pattern to make it extra stable) the outer tubes to fit the slide he sent me. I rebuilt the slide and soldered it up in the jig I built. Yeah, the slide didn’t fit when he got it. Thank god he was mechanically inclined enough to let me know exactly how to compensate for his horn and I was able to modify the slide so it would poorly work on my jig but work great on his horn.

Though it is 99% possible to successfully vent a piston without the entire horn and have it fit right back in place and work, I would not accept it. I’ve never before seen the “ghost hole” not line up with where the vent hole will go. But with my luck, venting a valve without the rest of the horn to confirm the correct location, I would probably end up in the wrong spot.

Ken Herrick wrote: Though, if you like, feel free to start a new poll...."Do you hate it when Ken, or somebody else, tells it like it is?"

Choice A : "Yes"
Chpice B : "No"
Choice C : "Only if he changes his name to Bloke"

Thanks guys! The risk doesn't sound worth it, so I'll just figure out some way of getting the horn to someone local.