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I've seen this from time to time, people adding coins to their rotor paddles to make them easier to reach and improve the ergonomics.

Does this cause any undesirable effects?
-- The extra weight of the coins probably does... something?
-- The extra length of the paddle changes the leverage a bit?
-- Does it slow things down?

I'm not convinced that I want or need to do this, but I've been fiddling with the adjustable fingerpads on my Willson a lot, and might benefit from just a little more length on the 4th valve.

Other option is to move the thumb ring and extend the 5th valve lever. Coins seem like a cheaper fix though. Any thoughts?

Will make the horn worth a little bit more...

bisontuba wrote:Will make the horn worth a little bit more...

..and make the coin worth *significantly* more.

I've considered drilling a hole in each paddle, and attaching Bloke's finger buttons using a nut to attach them. Would'nt neccessarily help ergonomics, but sure would look cool, and wouldn't require using a torch.

I have not found any difference in speed of the valves on my Marzan. I have a 4th valve extension made of aluminum and I use Canadian pennies on the paddles because at the time, they had a higher edge on the coin. Everything is attached with hot melt glue. In the 7 years they've been attached, only 2 coins have come loose.

Thanks, guys.

What size coin works well? Quarter? Larger?

Need to know what size Swiss franc to track down.

I temporarily added coins to the paddles of my Wessex (Jin Bao) Cimbasso in an attempt to improve ergonomics and get a better tactile feel to the paddles. (They are slippery and my fingers often slip off).

I went into my childhood coin collection and in a rather seredipious move found 5 Italian coins. Each was inscribed: Victor Emanuel Rex d' Italia. Or "VERDI." How appropriate for a cimbasso.

I initially attached them with double sided tape to see how I like them. NADA. Too heavy, actually slows things down a bit, the feel (even with the texture of Victor Emanuel's beard) was not that great. They seemed to go down more efficiently, but returned with less of a positive feel. And the surfaces were Still slippery.
Back to "paddles au naturale." I could see the Bloke Buttons as an alternative, though a bit pricey for just a tactile effect. Even Bloke mentioned to me once to use some sandpaper to ruffen up the paddles for better traction.

I've even used pads made from gasket cork and rubber saxophone mouthpiece bite pads. Those tend to distort after a little bit of use.

I suppose this is why I prefer pistons. But rotarys are a great valve, just a different logic.

Paul (I still have some other ideas up my sleeve.) Maybery

I've removed coins from the last two instruments that came to the shop with them installed, buffed the lead off of the coins and gave them back to the owners.

In the case of the first instrument, many unfortunate things had been done to the valveset on this instrument over the years, and by correcting the other problems, the coins were unneeded. This instrument's thumb ring, in a prior restoration, had been placed so high on the bell that I could not have played it without the coin additions, so I also moved the thumb ring to a more standard placement. With the instrument lying on the bench, I sight up the lever bar and hinge rod, to see if the tops of the levers are parallel to the 2nd slide and other tubing in that plane. On most rotor instruments, the lever tops and aforementioned slide tubing should be very close to parallel, and the upright braces for the lever bar should be perpendicular. If they are leaning towards the rotors or canted back towards the thumb ring and bell, I align them before I do anything else, as that may be the culprit. The valve throw, or camber, is also affected by the distance between the stop arm retaining screw and the linkage arm screw. The greater the distance, the longer the valve throw (and less effort required to press), and the smaller the distance, the shorter and stiffer the valve throw. Stop arms can be customized.

On the other instrument, there was a coin on the 5th lever (4-piston, 5th rotor horn). The Quarter was only a stop-gap measure that really did not fix the problem, so I removed the Quarter, re-shaped the linkage to make it really comfortable, resulting in a great horn that needs no alteration, and he can also park on the street for 10 minutes . . . . ;^)

Lee, I'm going to have to drive down and pay you a visit. I think if the thumb ring were moved down and the fifth lever "revised", that would solve most of this.

The Willson has some adjustable fingerpads, which are metal and bolt onto the paddles. Just seemed that even at its farthest out, they were still not quite right. Nothing really terrible, just not quite right. Someone of your talent can probably tell me in 5 seconds what needs to be done.

Maybe in late spring...?

Most of the rotary tubas i have owned i have added silver half dollars, quarters are too small but the US silver halfs are perfect. Some tubas like the wilson and alexanders have pretty short paddles making the throw short but the drawback is more force is needed. By adding the extra length the lever is more responsive. For tubas with good lever length it just makes it look cool. Never had an issue with the weight on the rotor as the extra weight is a small trade off to the better response. The wilson f tuba, terrible length as they are way too short.

Not coins, but the paddles on this Willson look pretty slick.

It does. I've talked to Dave about it before. I don't quite think it needs that much surgery done to it. That is cool though.

Generally... if your fingers aren't moving faster than your paddles can, you either have problems with your rotors or you are getting just too old to play! I don't think I would like something as heavy as half-dollars but quarters seem to be a nice size. That being said... I've only added a coin to the fourth (pinky) paddle simply because my 'pinky' is just too darned short.

If you're going to light up the torch, why not just rebuild the rotor paddles like I had my tech do? See the first picture here:

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=61956" target="_blank

We unsoldered the paddles, adjusted the tangs for angle and relative height, and re-soldered the paddles to the different required lengths to tailor them to my right hand ergonomics. In the long run, this is the better solution, and if the player prefers something tactile, then as above, engraved rotor paddles are available.