TubeNet

Why not just make a new one? Flat 1mm nickel-silver sheet stock, roll and silver-solder a seam.

A temporary repair might be required until , maybe, Dan Oberloh might be able to replace it for you for the permanent fix.

That's awful nice of you, Bloke. Elephant, I would take this deal as quick as possible.

And................They all lived happily ever after.

How does something like that happen? Strange injury

The TubeNet community comes through for the win!! Great news and the continuation of a terrific thread on this forum! Thanks Bloke and Elephant!

As I get the photos, the split is the thin quite straight and clean line between the edges of the ferrule where the soldering is visible.

If so, then the split looks a bit too clean for me. I would have expected the crystaline structures of the broken-by-stress-brass-surfaces being visible at the edges of the split. Might it be that the ferrule was made out of two pieces of brass, that were not properly joined to withstand the forces from two large pieces of brass, bell & bow, which carry the full weight of the tuba when rested on the bell or held in playing position? Going in and out of these positions puts a lot of lateral and torque forces on this joint (and on other joints).

To me it looks like the parts on either side of the split were ground to a plane level before being joined by a process unknown to me, but apparently not leaving many traces of solder.

It comes to my memory that one TubeNetter once found that the bell of a Conn student model tuba had not been soldered to the bell ferrule. These two part were only held together by the lacquer that had run into the joint.

Yes, I agree that the actual split happened due to stress, but maybe that ferrule wasn’t very stress resistand in the first place due to a false joining of parts.

Klaus

Even people can crack under stress.......could Bloke repair them?

Big disclaimer: My free hand drawing abilities on a screen are horrible, but that is the option I have.

I still tend to doubt that these clean splits are caused by stress. I rather suspect them being the result of a production concept that was either faulty or was not followed through all its steps with this tuba.

My bad sketch attempts to outline how a fairly long rectangular block of brass was cut somewhat like in the shape of a central watch with offset bands on each side. The ends of the bands and two half sides of the ’watch’ were cut at angles of 45°.

This piece of brass then could have been hammered round over a mandrel in the shape of the joint between the bell and the bottom bow. Then the seams of the ring could be soldered or brazed before it was put on a lathe to be turned into the articulated round outer shape seen on the photos.

If the soldering was not as good as it should have been. And/or if it was damaged by peening, annealing, or other work processes during the cutting-to-CC-process, then the split may have opened during the current rebuild while force was applied to this area.

With the right tools a ferrule may easily be turned out of one piece of brass or nickel silver, tut there will be a huge loss of material. The method I suspect being used allows for a much greater economy in the use of stock brass.

Klaus

It does look like it's breaking along some existing fault line, split on a seam rather than just torn apart where the stress is the greatest. But I'd have guessed that the fault would be more accidental - partly because runs at a slight angle, but also because it seems crazy to make a ferrule with a seam right where it needs to do its job. Why make the ring out of the above stock shape, rather than just a simple rectangle that (if I understand your idea) would be twice as wide and half as long?

(Accidental means, the seam was already in the sheet stock, that the ring was cut out of. Or whatever initial mass of brass.)

Is there a history of trouble with bent & pounded ferrule construction, that makes casting an attractive alternative?

I've never seen one that was cast. All that have crossed my bench were made from plate. Yours may have been roll formed from plate on a manderle and the center cut out. Casting seems an odd way to go but I have seen stranger things done then that. Good luck with your task, Wade

D.C. Oberloh
Oberloh Woodwind and Brass Works
http://www.oberloh.com" target="_blank

Good result in the end, but those lines in my eyes never could have been a split caused by stress or fault in the material. So clean and straight lines are man made.

I wonder why they were there. Maybe lines to secure good adjustment during the original assembly. Mybe they told how to place the ferrule in a jig.

As I remember it, your big Holton was silver plated, so that you actually may have seen these lines open up during your buffing process. If they had been covered with solder before the original buffing and plating, these lines would be hard to detect until your buffing wheel took off the the plating plus the solder that you didn’t know about.

Klaus