My "New" Toy!

[Lectron]

Looking good.
Nicely shaped leadpipe

[Tubajug]

Here is the finished leadpipe! I know you have to melt the pitch out, but is there anything you need to do after that to get it all cleaned out? Thanks and Happy Thanksgiving!

[Tubajug]

The leadpipe has been corked on both ends with paint thinner inside, hopefully getting rid of the last of the pitch. With any luck, I'll have this thing back together tomorrow!

I also got the water key installed yesterday. Boy am I glad Lee Stofer mentioned using paste flux, that stuff is awesome! It made soldering this thing on a cinch!

[Tubajug]

Thanks for the great info Wade! I actually kind of did it in subassemblies. I did the bugle first, but I left the wires in place in case the heat from the torch loosened the solder when putting on the other parts (I learned that from another tuba the hard way...). Thanks for your help in all this Wade!

[Tubajug]

Ok folks, here's your first look at my now-playable Eb tuba. It took me almost a year and it's not completely done (bow guard for one), but it plays! Good night!

[Tubajug]

Here it is after some polish. The poor lighting makes it look all silver, but it's silver and bare brass. According to my phone tuner, it's flat. I expected that because the leadpipe ended up being a bit longer than the original. I've got room to trim from the main slide to get it back up to pitch.

So far it seems pretty in tune with itself. It's manageable anyway. We'll see what happens when I play it with other people. I'm just pleased with myself for taking a beat up junker and making it playable again! It's been a lot of fun! I think I'll take bloke's idea and just put a guard wire across the bottom bow instead of messing with the bow guard.

[Tubajug]

I cut about 3/4" off of each side of the main tuning slide and it plays much better in tune now! The open notes are spot on with the slide out about 1/2." For whatever reason the 4th line F is still flat when played with 1st valve, but is manageable with 1-3. So far I'm liking my little Eb! Thanks for all the help and encouragement along the way!

[gwwilk]

When sustained I often play that same partial note, C in the staff, using 13 or 4 on my BBb Rudy-Meinl Bayreuth and my Miraphone 191. The 5th-partial-flat problem carries over to B in the staff which needs 123 or 24 when sustained. Playing a C or B in the staff on the R-M in community band can absolutely destroy the section's sound and projection unless an alternate fingering is used. C above the staff is in tune when played open, and C below the staff is of course played 4.

Back on topic, will this tuba be ready to bring to the Capitol Tuba Christmas the 17th, Jordan?

[Tubajug]

Back on topic, will this tuba be ready to bring to the Capitol Tuba Christmas the 17th, Jordan?

That's been my goal all along! Now I can cover the high tuba part even easier! I've been practicing that part on my Eb a little here and there to get the fingerings down a bit better.

Is it officially on the 17th Jerry? I haven't heard anything...

[gwwilk]

Is it officially on the 17th Jerry? I haven't heard anything...

It isn't 'official', but the organizer says...

[Tubajug]

Here's a little recording of me playing "Silent Night" on this little guy (it's through dropbox, so I hope it works). Tuning seems ok. What are your thoughts? I chose to do it in the key of Eb just to make it easy on me learning new fingerings still... Thanks for your input!

Silent Night

[Davidus1]

I admire the courage and the determination to go forward with this project. Looking good! Thanks for sharing it with us.

[Tubajug]

I admire the courage and the determination to go forward with this project. Looking good! Thanks for sharing it with us.

Thanks! It's been a lot of fun. I'm just glad it turned into a workable horn. My biggest fear was that it would be a total bust in the end.

I think I fixed the dropbox link. If not, I'm not sure what to do. I signed up for soundcloud but never got the confirmation email necessary to start uploading files. Any other ways I could upload files on here?

[ghmerrill]

Some advice on the Amado water key -- that others may already have given you.

I put two of those on my Buescher Eb so I wouldn't have to pull the 1st and 3rd slides to dump water. They were quick and easy, and it was my first experience with water keys.

They seem to work okay ... Except that I ended up having to "reverse" the one on the 1st valve so the plunger wasn't pointing outward -- since I was pressing it with my left hand while playing and working my 3rd valve kicker . However, I suspect that in time I will replace them with standard water keys if I can find the right size and orient them correctly.

You MUST oil them rather constantly. The usual recommendation is: Oil the Amado keys when you oil your valves. Otherwise they tend to get partially hung up, failing to close all the way under spring pressure, and introducing a small leak. I wish they made slightly larger ones for tubas, but they do seem to dump enough water at least on these smaller horns.

[Tubajug]

I ended up having to "reverse" the one on the 1st valve so the plunger wasn't pointing outward -- since I was pressing it with my left hand while playing and working my 3rd valve kicker . However, I suspect that in time I will replace them with standard water keys if I can find the right size and orient them correctly.

I'm noticing this too, I might have to reverse mine as well. When I hold the tuba, my left wrist will sometimes press the water key and I get a wet sleeve!

You MUST oil them rather constantly. The usual recommendation is: Oil the Amado keys when you oil your valves. Otherwise they tend to get partially hung up, failing to close all the way under spring pressure, and introducing a small leak. I wish they made slightly larger ones for tubas, but they do seem to dump enough water at least on these smaller horns.

What do you use to oil it? Just valve oil?

[ghmerrill]

The inconvenience of the wet sleeve is in addition to the embarrassing sound that results from suddenly having a hole in your first valve circuit when you're using that valve .

I just use the same oil I use on the valves -- which in my case for this horn is Yamaha Vintage Synthetic Valve Oil. The other choice would be to use a thicker oil like Montana Xtreme -- but I get tired of having to mess with two different oils for one horn. You can't use too thick an oil because those those little springs in the Amado water keys don't have all that much strength -- though now that I think about it, finding some stronger ones that would fit might be worth the effort.

[ghmerrill]

Another thing you might think of doing is replacing the valve guides with plastic ones. On Dan Schultz's recommendation I got a bunch of 3mm nylon "cheese head" screws, drilled out the valve guide holes, tapped them to M3x0.5 for the plastic screws, and cut/installed them as valve guides. By the time I got to the third one I'd figured out how to do it reasonably efficiently. That eliminated all the clanking from the old worn metal valve guides and also removed the sloppy bit of rotation in the valves that resulted from the wear as well.

I use Yamaha plastic coated springs in the valves.

This horn goes to Tuba Christmas in Wilmington on Sunday. It was there for TubaZalea in the spring, but was not playing so well in tune at that point because I hadn't cut the second valve slide down yet and was still entertaining the fantasy that it wasn't necessary.

[Tubajug]

After playing it the past little while I discovered that it was quite uncomfortable to hold for long periods of time, standing or sitting. I decided I needed a strap and so I put on an extra ring (I tried the set up it originally had, which was a ring as the part attaching the receiver to the bell and a ring on the back of the bell, but a strap on those two points didn't hold up the horn at all...). I took the thumb ring off of my Bach tuba and used that (I'm replacing it with a bigger, "manly" ring anyway). It's much easier and more comfortable to hold now! Another victory!



You can see the ring that attaches the receiver in the photo here. I don't know who thought that would work... The strap is just from an old camera case, but it works just fine!

[Tubajug]

I was able to play my little horn at our local "Capitol Carols" concert playing along with the UNL Tuba/Euphonium ensemble. It was very good because I was able to play along side a fellow using a Besson 983 Eb. We compared pitch between the two horns and I was able to compare tuning and fingerings with another (much more modern!) Eb tuba. I was very pleased that only a few alternate fingerings were needed (mostly just using 3 instead 1-2). He said he liked the sound of my little horn. He said it was very "singing-like" and that it had that British brass band sound.

It was fun because he and I were the only ones playing the upper tuba part and having the two Eb's on that part made it really nice! The best thing about the event was just knowing that I could play the horn in tune with other people!

Here's a photo of me and my family after the concert (the only camera we had was my cell phone unfortunately):

[Ken Herrick]

Well done, Jordan!!!!

At the start of the year you had a basket case and went to work on it and in time for Christmas gave yourself a present of a useable instrument. It looks like your family approves the results of all your efforts.

Merry Christmas to all of you.