About a year ago, I purchased this York Monster Eb Tuba from a fellow member of this board. It played ok, but the valves were well worn, and as you can see, it was pretty beat up.... but it sounded great.
Only having limited funds to spend, a complete rebuild/restoration was out of the question (at least for now), but I wanted to fix it up. After much deliberation, knowing it HAD to have 4 valves, I undertook the projcect of the conversion you see in the following pictures.
Art H contacted me saying he had a 4 valve section from a BBb York that would probably work on the horn, complete with slides. I planned to use the BBb slides from the valveset to make the 4th branch, and use my original Eb 1-3 slides.
As it turned out, I ended up buying another set of 1-3 Eb York slides from Bloke when I made a trip to Memphis in late April to get the bell rolled out and pick up the bottom bow that I got from him. The man does great work as we've all seen from his Helicon and other projects, and he spent a couple of hours rolling and buffing my bell, and WOW it looks great! Here's a before and after of the bell.
Joe also let me go through his "York box" of odds and ends, and I bought a few crooks, caps, buttons, as well as the 1-3 Eb slides. I did bring home the bottom bow, but I'm saving it for the future replate.
I got home from Memphis and started laying out the valvesection on the horn. After a few (well, many) attempts, I came up with a workable layout that I think almost looks like it "grew there." Here's a pic of the wired up horn.
Now, it's off to my local repair shop, The Bandsmith, owned by Craig Heinrich. http://thebandsmith.com/york_eb_tuba.htm
Craig provided the expertise, experience and (not to mention) the skill to make this project all come together. We disassembled the rest of the major branches and everything went into the chem tank for cleaning. Craig then did some dent work on the outer branches. Again, funds were limited, so perfection was not the goal, but I wanted it nice to look at.
As things progressed, it became evident that the layout that I had worked out would not work. After truing up the 4th valve slides, we had major interference with the 3rd valve slide and also the exit from the valve section. We relocated the 3rd valve outer slide and used a slightly narrower crook from the Bb set to move it inward, and used a wider crook on the 4th to get the slide above the exit from the valves. Craig soldered up the valve section and soldered the outer branches and it was time to put it together.
Back at my place, I put it all together and the original leadpipe even lined right up in it's original location on the bell. I had been worried about that.
I put a mouthpiece in, and played it! ...dry valves, leaks at 3 joints which weren't soldered yet, and all. I couldn't believe how well it played! Very easy to play...most notes centered very well....and it still had "that" sound! So far, so good!Now it's back to Craig's shop for final soldering.
It's done for now. It plays beautifully. The intonation is, from what I hear, typical of fat Eb horns. i.e. the 5th partial. "g" in the staff can be lipped up to pitch, the "f" is better played 4th, etc, but it's manageable. It may be parts of many horns, but it's all York.
Many thanks to ArtH, Bloke, and Craig. I love it!
Eugene Whitmore
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