Wessex berg and BMB f

[MikeMason]

Anyone bought a new one of these lately? If you bang the valves on the Wessex down firmly, to they click/clank? If you play the berg hard for a few hours, do the screws vibrate loose?(which happened on both Jb f's I've owned). Is the bmb only available in 17" now,instead of choice of 16 or 18? Only interested in recent purchases. Thanks.

[greatk82]

I have had a Berg for about a three weeks now and I am very pleased with it. I have about 30 hours on it, and have had no problems.

[PaulMaybery]

I have both of these tubas.

Though the BMB is 3 years old. Those pistons are lightning fast. Attention does need to be paid to the pads on the valve cap. The bottom edge of the button tends to cut through them, creating a need to replace them occasionally, The plastic valve guides wore very quickly and Dan Schultz spotted the problem, that being that the channels in which they ride were never deburred and the roughness ate up the little tongue on the guide. When I got back to Minnesota I had some friends at Red Wing burnish the channels and dress down the roughness.

I also noticed that because the 1st valve slide did not have much bracing, it tended to torque a bit as I did my usual slide pulling and pushing. Hence it would begin to bind up a tad. I had a brace installed that supports one of the 1st valve slides and a smaller brace that goes between the other 1st valve slide and the 2nd valve slide. Suffice it to say this corrected those issues and the 1st valve never binds anymore.

The Berg of course is a rotary tuba and has some different issues. I've had it now 3 months - play it every day and have used it in a number of orchestra settings. I has a marvelous presence and a delicious sound. The intonation is as good or better than anything out there. And that is not just my opinion but other full time symphony players.

However, the valves could be better, and time will take care of that in 1 of 2 ways. They will either break in on their own or I will eventually have my guy lap the spindle/bearings a bit. They are incredibly smooth and quiet, just a tad sluggish.

The construction design is of a style typical of Miraphone as opposed to those on the B&S - MW valves. (the paddles are connected to a rod which is wrapped up and over the cross rod and springs) I find with this type of design that after you depress the paddle and the stop arm hits the bumper, the paddle continues to flex about another 1/8 inch. This is not the case with the valve assembly on the Wessex cimbasso which is of the other design. The material of which the assembly is made is somewhat flexible and so it tends to bend. This is good as it allows you to position your paddles where you want them, but also the end of the assembly where the rod and miniballs connects can also bend, and this often throws off the angle of the rod and causes the miniball at the rotor end click on the stop arm tower.

I have found the occasional screw does work loose. I always carry a variety of screw drivers in my tool bag.
Other clicking issues can stem from the bearing plate on the back not fitting properly. Commonly called end play.
This I found was not easy to address. What I found is that when the rear bearing plate was where it needed to be all of the way in, the rotor would bind or seize.
A tap on the valve stem with the ol' rawhide hammer would set it free, but it was not quite a predictable method.
I did find that the bearing plate and valve still had that black factory crud on it. After I polished them and cleaned them things were a lot better.
I contend that they still need a custom and proper lapping.

A rarely thought of noise problem can come from the bumpers. If they are not installed snuggly, they can vibrate a bit and cause a clicking sound.
I use a small wooden rod to push them into their little crescent shaped housing. I once used a small screw driver and while I did push it back in, the blade did cut the neoprene bumper and I had the hardest time tracking down the noise.

Of course any of the ball joints if not lubricated can cause noise. But new ones should be pretty quiet.
Don't forgert those little nuts that tighten up against the miniball rod end bearing.

For what it is worth I always swap out the clear silicon type valve bumpers for black neoprene. They seem to not let the stop arm bounce as much. Maybe it's just me.

One bit of advice to anyone who removes rotary valves. Even the tiniest scratch on the bearing stems or inside the bearings can cause a certain drag.
Be very careful when using metal tools around them.

I also have a Wessex cimbasso and had virtually the same experiece with those rotors. The good news is that there is a beautiful valve inside there and with some dressing they should work extremely well.

I was chatting with a top tier horn player a while ago, and the discussion led to what they referred to as getting a horn set up. Lapping valves and slides, getting slides parallel, adjusting spring tension and the angle of the paddles. So many little personal items that make an instrument feel like a work of art in the players hands. It should not be too much to expect to have a horn like that, but it rarely ever happens with a horn right out of the box.

[MikeMason]

Thanks for the very comprehensive reply. So, yes they click clank and the screws vibrate loose. Sounds like a great horn if the mechanics could be solved. Might be worth a thousand or 2 more if they could use packer level hardware/quality control. I know it's a trend in Chinese French horns to do just that. Profit and happy customers being made in the after market.