Shout Out To Local Repair Guy!!!

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TubaDude
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Shout Out To Local Repair Guy!!!

Post by TubaDude »

Hey All;

Just wanted to give a major SHOUT OUT for a tremendous and expeditious repair job a local guy Chase Cavalier at Palen Music Company in Springdale Arkansas, and a SHOUT OUT to T.N. Member BrooklynBass for all of effort he put into the deal and the follow up of the 1913 York & Sons Eb/CC Helicon. When I started following the UPS shipment tracker and the first entry from the first movement local was "Package misplaced, delivery delayed at least 1 day." I knew there were going to be issues with the logistics part of this deal.

When the box was left on my front porch bell side down, btw the box was clearly labeled this side up, I knew the logistic nightmare was confirmed, especially when the box at the bell end looked like this:

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Since I received the horn on a Friday afternoon I started emailing all of my old local contacts and found out that my old brass repair guy had semi retired and put all of his tools in storage, so the following Monday I took the York into Palen on my lunch hour and met Chase, a very young and energetic brass technician. Four days later, Friday morning, I received a call that the horn was ready for me to pick up, WOW!!! I was expecting it to take a couple of weeks not days and the repair was done at a very reasonable cost.

Below are a few pics of the damage and the repaired horn.


View 1 Before
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View 1 After
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View 2 Before
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View 2 After
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View 3 Before
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View 3 After
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If you're ever in my neck of the woods and need your brasswind instruments drop it by Palen and see Chase. And again Thank you BrooklynBass for everything that you did to make everything in your control go smoothly on the York sale. In the future I won't think twice about buying an instrument through TN from BrooklynBass.
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1909 King Helicon with 4th Valve Added
1913 York 4 Valve Eb/C Helicon (for sale)
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Ltrain
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Re: Shout Out To Local Repair Guy!!!

Post by Ltrain »

Thanks, Dude. Glad everything worked out in the end. She looks better than before shipment. I was happy to cover the repair over dealing with UPS. Fontunatly Chase charges a more than fair rate.

Lesson learned here (for me): don't think twice about an extra layer of cardboard and bubble wrap. If I ever ship a horn sans-case again, I'm going to reinforce it with high-density foam and double coat the box in pallet plastic wrap. One must always assume their package will be processed through a room of angry bears, and prepare accordingly.
Eastman 853 Eb ("Edith")
1963 King 1250 Sousaphone ("Jackie O")
Aguilar Amplification
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Re: Shout Out To Local Repair Guy!!!

Post by tofu »

YORK-aholic wrote:I would think that a helicon must be the hardest 'tuba' like object to package and also the most prone to shipping damage.
Especially through UPS. He must have been bumping up against their size maximum with the box. That's the problem especially if you were to double box / bubble wrap / etc. The size gets large real fast. I'm amazed there wasn't more damage. Glad to hear it did get worked out for both parties.
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Donn
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Re: Shout Out To Local Repair Guy!!!

Post by Donn »

Not only that, but once you have your new helicon unwrapped and ready to go, it's the same problem every time you leave the house.

I am too inebriated at the moment to be motivated to round up before and after pictures, but the young lady who does brass repair a couple blocks from my house did a fine job with my Holton after a brutal UPS cross country trip (Seattle Sound Repair.) Not to make light of it - a new shop that has been getting a whole lot of business, a clear testament to their talent - but there are a lot of places in every part of the country that can remove dents from a tuba bell.

I shipped a helicon once, an Amati[/Cerveny] F helicon that was on the small side as helicons go. When I was done, I could barely get that box through the door. What you need is not a case, and what you need is not double-wrapped reinforced etc., you need space. When the baggage gorilla grabs your case and does his thing with it, the helicon acquires what we physicists call "momentum", for a short period of time. At the end of that time, the momentum is converted an impact force that is distributed from the points of impact. The object of packing is to distribute the points of impact as much as possible, and to surround them with shock absorbing material. Shock absorbing material is neither strong, nor is it really soft, it's just soft enough to take the impact from the weight of that helicon, but not distort the point of impact (possibly the bell.) Paper towel rolls or toilet paper rolls in their bags, bubble wrap, stuff like that, but there's no way to cheat on space - if it can take the impact, it's going to take up some room in the box.
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