History of the Holton 345

[BoilerGoalie]

Hi All!

Kind of bringing this one back out of the woodwork ... Great information already!

Any history of modifications to these Holton 345s that have been done successfully (other than 5th valve adders of course)?
Kickers, extra water valve spots, spring adjustments, etc. etc.

Never really had intonation problems with mine until getting way down in the pedals. I've been playing on a BBb version of the 345 for a number of years and always wanted to know.

Thanks!
Kevin

[Paul Scott]

A story that I'd heard years back (from very credible sources) was that Jacobs really wanted Holton to build him a bell-front CC tuba. He wanted this for the concerts at Ravinia and was disappointed when they built it with an upright bell. It would've been interesting if Jacobs had played on a bell-front with the Chicago Symphony at some point! Certainly some of our accepted "norms" would be different today!

[EdFirth]

Holton did build at least one detachable bell(up and front) for Jake. Russ Ward was playing on it when I got to central Florida in 1983. He sold it to Bob Carpenter a few years later and just a few years ago Bob put a "York Brass" one piece raincatcher on it as well as a bunch of other mods.He probably still has the original bell stack with both bells somewhere. It's a great sounding friendly horn .Ed

[LCTuba89]

They are 3-loop (not 4-loop) tubas

So, I am guessing the 4 loop made the shorter and fatter? I have never counted wraps before, interesting.

I think the extra loop added more resistance so the horn wouldn't be as free blowing. To my knowledge the 4th valve tubing also had the same bore as the other 3 valves which made the lower register really stuffy. Alex C somewhere has stated that the Holtons were offered with 3 different lead-pipes which changed the overall playing characteristics of the horn. One lead-pipe offered excellent intonation but a terrible lower register. The next one offered good intonation and a good lower register. The last one offered terrible intonation and a excellent lower register. At the the time these horns were made, there weren't many (if any all) anti-stuffy mouthpieces like the ones we have now, so many chose to go with option 2 (if they even had the choice).

In contrast, my BMB horn is a 3 loop design with an enlarged 4th valve slide tube. The lead-pipe is probably an intonation friendly one and the result being excellent intonation (except the typical flat 5th found in most tubas) and a thunderous free blowing low register. The trade-off being it is very free blowing, but the provided mouthpiece is actually designed to counter that free blowing nature while still retaining great playability.

A Holton (if it was built correctly) is an amazing instrument and there were several up for sale at the time when I was looking for a 6/4. However not taking any chances with getting a dud (as I was already playing a dud known as a MW 2155R), I stuck with a BMB which has excellent consistency.

Edit: My BMB is actually a 4 loop horn and the Holton actually has a larger 4th valve than the rest of the valves on the 345. I need to be more thorough with my investigations it seems.

[roweenie]

A story that I'd heard years back (from very credible sources) was that Jacobs really wanted Holton to build him a bell-front CC tuba. He wanted this for the concerts at Ravinia and was disappointed when they built it with an upright bell. It would've been interesting if Jacobs had played on a bell-front with the Chicago Symphony at some point! Certainly some of our accepted "norms" would be different today!

Yes Paul, I've heard this story, also. I also heard that the horn built for him, for that specific purpose, had a detachable upright bell, so I don't see any reason why he couldn't have easily obtained a recording bell to fit. Maybe there is more to that story than any of us know (or will ever know).

If our sources are one and the same, I believe I am now the current owner of that upright detachable bell..... (?)

[Matt Walters]

The dates of production were 1951 to 1975

Danny Brown of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra bought a new CC-345 in late 1976 or early 1977 and then his brother Donny Brown bought a new CC-345 later in 1977.
Giardinelli's was advertising them at $1200 in lacquer.

[Matt Walters]

I don't believe they enjoyed receiving orders for those. Having taken several apart, I suspect they were equally enthusiastic about building them.

Having seen how poorly built those Holton tubas were when taking them apart and the same for many Alexanders, I am of the opinion being taken off the French Horn building line and told to slap together a few tubas was a punishment. i.e. "Since you messed up one to many French horns by being the weak link here (or made a pass at the foreman's wife), you get to do tubas. The sooner you slap those things together, the sooner you can come back and relax making tiny French horns."

[tofu]

I remember a visit to the Kenosha plant around that time

bloke "Do I have currently own any of these tubas...??? uh...no...no...I don't."

So Holton was in Kenosha - I always assumed they had been in ELkhorn, WI for some reason. I seem to recall having one years ago with Elkhorn on the engraving.

[toobagrowl]

Not a Holton 345, but this thread has me thinking about my old Holton 350/105 (Bell says BB 350, serial# puts it at 1967, has the larger ferrules, yet with the sousaphone-style valveset).
Pitch tendencies are similar to what bloke stated. I've been tooting on it the last few days during this "off-season".
I find the metal quite thick, and one day I'd like to get the dents taken out. Would be nice to find an upright bell for it someday. But I've gotta say this tuba still sounds better than any other 6/4 I've played/heard - even the expensive/fancy 6/4 York-o-phones.
I still have cassette tape recordings from concerts I did back in the 1990s with this tuba

Despite what ppl say about build quality (yeah the 3rd valve circuit tubing has 'funky' alignment), these tubas were completely hand-made. Even the slide-tubes were hand-hammered Very apparent on my vintage Holton BBb & Eb tubas.

[gionvil]

My Holton, which should be more or less of the late '60s, has no engraving on the bell. Did all Holtons bear an engraving on the bell and this one somehow wasn't finished for some reason? It seems to have an area of not satin but shiny silver where the engraving should have been made..

[roweenie]

Even the slide-tubes were hand-hammered

How was this accomplished?

[roweenie]

Even the slide-tubes were hand-hammered

How was this accomplished?

dent removal...??

[toobagrowl]

Even the slide-tubes were hand-hammered

How was this accomplished?

Scroll down to June 9 2013

http://www.brassark.com/journal.html

Yeah, dent work can reveal it too. You can see the hammered/rippeled look after taking dents out. Clearly visible on my vintage Holtons. I also took a leadpipe off a vintage tuba early this year. The seam on it is CLEARLY visible. If old leadpipes can be hand-made, why not old slides and slide crooks

Dent work looks different (smoother) on seamless/hydroformed/drawn tubing. And I somehow find it hard to believe that tubas made 100 years ago had hydro-formed tubes But please correct me if I'm wrong.

[roweenie]

That's a conical trombone leadpipe pictured.

Hydroforming isn't the only way to make brass tubing. Drawbenches have been in existence for many years, and is the way that trombone slides are still made to this day (the ones I saw in the Conn-Selmer factory that they use to make Bach trombones were probably at least 80 years old).

Before hydroforming, crooks were filled with pitch (or lead) and hand bent on mandrels, but the tubing they were made from was machine made. Any hammering done to them was to remove ripples introduced during the bending process.

[barry grrr-ero]

There are two 345 CC's in the S.F. Bay Area that I'm aware of and they both sound fabulous (strong players too, obviously). One of them used to belong to Floyd Cooley. The other one will probably be used in Santa Cruz very shortly for the Cabrillo Music Festival (modern programs).

John Fletcher told me that Arnold Jacobs found the 345 that he used. I saw Fletch' play Mahler 1 and Mahler 3 under Abbado in Royal Festival Hall. He asked he if he sounded too loud in comparison to everyone else. I told that since I was seated upstairs, I certainly had no trouble hearing him!

[mikalengen]

The local amateur wind band where I live have one. It is assumed to be from the -60's, and used to belong to the symphony orchestra in the nearest city. It was originally a four valve horn, but some time in the seventies got a fifth valve added for the right thumb. At the same time the fourth valve was replaced with a rotor valve also operated by the right thumb. I think the work was done at the Gronitz factory. Interesting solution.

[roweenie]

The local amateur wind band where I live have one. It is assumed to be from the -60's, and used to belong to the symphony orchestra in the nearest city. It was originally a four valve horn, but some time in the seventies got a fifth valve added for the right thumb. At the same time the fourth valve was replaced with a rotor valve also operated by the right thumb. I think the work was done at the Gronitz factory. Interesting solution.

I'd be curious to see how this was accomplished (and pondering, "what situation would this 'solution' resolve"?)

[timayer]

The local amateur wind band where I live have one. It is assumed to be from the -60's, and used to belong to the symphony orchestra in the nearest city. It was originally a four valve horn, but some time in the seventies got a fifth valve added for the right thumb. At the same time the fourth valve was replaced with a rotor valve also operated by the right thumb. I think the work was done at the Gronitz factory. Interesting solution.

I'd be curious to see how this was accomplished (and pondering, "what situation would this 'solution' resolve"?)

Having a koala in the tuba section.

[roweenie]

The local amateur wind band where I live have one. It is assumed to be from the -60's, and used to belong to the symphony orchestra in the nearest city. It was originally a four valve horn, but some time in the seventies got a fifth valve added for the right thumb. At the same time the fourth valve was replaced with a rotor valve also operated by the right thumb. I think the work was done at the Gronitz factory. Interesting solution.

I'd be curious to see how this was accomplished (and pondering, "what situation would this 'solution' resolve"?)

Having a koala in the tuba section.

Impressive reply, sir

[Rick Denney]

I wonder if it was originally a 3-valve BB-340, to which both a fourth and fifth valve were added.

Or maybe it was an attempt to remove the step—the fourth valve is a 3/4” bore but the tubing is larger—.810? Though I’d rather sleeve the tubing down a bit in the straight sections.

Rick “this thread brings back memories” Denney