Anderson thread?

[Daniel C. Oberloh]

Curious why it was locked?


Dan'l

[Daniel C. Oberloh]

Oh, I see. You were being naughty, Joe? (snicker) Did you upset the Tuba Gods again?


Yes, I can and do rebuild valves. I perform such services for other repair shops and private individuals. I'm one of the guys that repairs and rebuild the stuff ASP always had the good sense to avoid.

Some of the stuff you need to have, if you want to rebuild tuba and euphonium valves ($$,$$$.$$). Helps too, to know how it is used.




Daniel C. Oberloh
Oberloh Woodwind and Brass Works

[Daniel C. Oberloh]

Crap, I miss all the good stuff. (pfft, oh bother) teach me to visit TN more frequently.

Dan'l

[Daniel C. Oberloh]

It's a shame that the thread got off in the wrong direction. Perhaps it can be rebooted and a more interesting discussion can take root.

Dan Schultz mentioned he did plating in his basement, brave man. hehehe
I was reading the other thread and thought it important to point out a few things.

Let me make it clear, you don't just plate a valve bigger and then it magically drops into the cylinder. It must be honed to size.

When it comes to plating valves (pistons or rotors), we are talking about "structural plating". Such plating requires a 100% perfect bond to the substrate. "Decorative" nickel plating is very forgiving and though it may not be bonded 100% it can hold up and last a very long time. Such plating can be done on a small-ish scale. The problem with structural plating is that it really needs to be done in a large plating bath to reduce current loads and provide stability to the electrolyte solution. In other words, the smaller the tank the more likely the bath will have problems, big problems. Small operations have a never ending battle with the chemistry and finding a solution to the problem. The valves as Joe noted, go thru a lot of prep before they start the plating process which is typically acid copper over a copper cyanide strike or "flash". The valve must be absolutely clean or the plating WILL fail during the external honing processes. Any weakness will manifest by lifting the plated material, peeling it from the base metal, with it likely resulting in damage to the valve as well as the honing tools. My point is that plating valves is a process that calls for a lot of knowledge and understanding of not just the plating but the complete rebuilding process and a militant level of respect for the details. Any shortfall in the plating Will result in immediate failure of the final product.

Furthermore, the honing processes (external for pistons and internal for cylinders) is not a skill that can be learned over a weekend. The knowledge required is vast and takes a lot of study, specialized training and a ton of practice to master. In addition to honing, the Tech must have adequate machining skills to produce the necessary parts and repairs to the piston ports, guide keys, stems, lids, bottom inserts, casing threads, caps, etc. They must also be able to design and machine the never ending array and variety of tooling such as piston arbors, drive blocks and arbor screw shafts. In addition to the honing tools, stones and fixtures, it is also important for the Tech to understand the complete plating process and the dos and don'ts when it comes to the repair materials employed. It's imperative that we have a healthy understanding of the importance of what a "clean product" means (NO CONTAMINATION is acceptable), we must be absolutely sure that we are not brining any honing oil, non-compatible materials or flux residue to the plating bath. This can really mess things up for everyone.

So, with this little rant, you can hopefully understand why so few sources exist that provide the valve rebuilding service and maybe why ASP has chosen to discontinue to offer it.



Daniel C. Oberloh

[Three Valves]

Crap, I miss all the good stuff. (pfft, oh bother) teach me to visit TN more frequently.

Dan'l

You could have missed it in a blink!!

That’s why I try to check in regularly!!

[Donn]

100% and higher

Especially in math.

[Ken Crawford]

SERIOUSLY,
Send your valve work to DAN...unless/until he doesn't want it...

Which is more than likely.

[bort]

Sounds too complicated. I'll just buy MAW valves if I need a to-do.

Huge respect to the people like Dan who do this work!

[Daniel C. Oberloh]

Bort-

Just so you know, I'm reversing a Thor from MAW valves back to it original gear. That was a $1200 lesson for it owner. With about .003"+ slop, they were a pretty crappy fit and delivered equally crappy action. I just hope the cylinders survived the experience. Food for thought.


Dan'l

[bort]

Bort-

Just so you know, I'm reversing a Thor from MAW valves back to it original gear. That was a $1200 lesson for it owner. With about .003"+ slop, they were a pretty crappy fit and delivered equally crappy action. I just hope the cylinders survived the experience. Food for thought.


Dan'l

Damn, that's horrible. Hopefully just an exception...

[Dan Schultz]

To be clear.... I DID say that I have done nickel plating in my basement. HOWEVER... it was not on tuba valves... only some decorative stuff.

I do not and I will not perform valve refits.

Send yours to Dan O.

[Daniel C. Oberloh]

I love MS quality, no complaints. The MAW valve is an interesting design concept that demonstrates excellent build quality. Its a fight of which I have no dog. I do have some worries on the way the piston will interact over time with the cylinders. The concern goes back to when I received my training from Sunnen. It has to do with the surface areas of the cylinder and how it interacts over time with the piston. Its why a special hone is used for cylinders that have really large ports and minimal wall material (surface area). When working on such projects, we use a key-way mandrel. Its early in the game still and I am really interested to see how the mechanics work over time. Personally I have yet to notice much in the playing characteristic that grabs me but I'm not at that level a player. If it works for the player and answers all they'er prayers, BRAVO! Im fine with people spending there money how they chose but... I have strong reservations on the delivery of a quality "drop in and play" fit. Its my warning to players that the fit needs to be proper, as in tolerances of.001" and no more. It should also not require excessive fitting (lapping) and god forbid, no HONING to the cylinder (eeeek!)

I say this because if not done with care, this takes us on a one way trip that we can not easily reverse, if one has a change of heart or finds the conversion not to their liking. The excessively lapped cylinder being enlarged will now make the originals fit loos with the likelihood of soon developing issues with the valve action. Such matters created during a simple experiment on an instrument with no issues to start, would be pretty heart breaking and upsetting, not to mention the distress it might inflict on the musician who made such an experiment with a new $20,000+ instrument with stainless steel pistons. That's the other catch, stainless steel is a bitch to plate. It has chromium in the alloy. Yes it can be plated on but its really iffy. Nickel is also a part of the alloy and it alloyed with chrome can also be a real pain in the butt to plate over. It has to do with the surface oxides they create. That serious iffy-ness makes it the reason I wont even bother to try (for now). It goes back to the matters of the plating bond needing to be 100% for the honing process. So with stainless, unlike brass, copper, nickel-silver and monel, the ability to get out of the corner to which we have painted ourselves is a difficult and expensive, if not down right impossible.

I offer my view not to dissuade you from interest in the MAW valves but to provide more details, insight and caution on the subject should one chose to pursue this "upgrade"

My 2¢
Daniel C. Oberloh

[tofu]

.

[Donn]

Ibut... I have strong reservations on the delivery of a quality "drop in and play" fit. Its my warning to players that the fit needs to be proper, as in tolerances of.001" and no more.

So if I were to get a set of MAW tuba pistons, and they dropped in and sounded fine, then we're good, am I right?

If the fit is too loose, the won't sound fine. If it's too tight, they won't drop in. Is that overly simplistic, are there practical issues that are important but wouldn't be evident right away?

[royjohn]

Hi Donn,
I do think that is a bit oversimplified...the valves could drop in and sound OK, but perhaps would be too loose to last very long, which could be covered up for a time by thick-enough valve oil. I think someone who upgraded pistons would not want something that sounded OK for the time being but later turned out to induce subtle tonal changes or evidence of worn pistons...

If the pistons don't drop in, the valves could be honed so that they will fit, but, as Dan Oberloh pointed out, if the player decided to revert to the original valves, these might not fit as well anymore. Of course, they could easily be plated again and made to fit by lapping, as in any valve job, but there's the additional expense of that repair. Not as expensive as removing the valve set and re-doing the whole thing, assuming that the lapping process can be done with the valve set on the horn, but still a considerable expense. Obviously one should not change valves on a whim and probably should play a horn that's been modified first to hopefully avoid an unpleasant surprise. There's always risk with any possibility of improvement.

I entered this thread late and IDK what exactly was moved or deleted. Has Anderson Silver Plating decided to quit plating tuba valves? Or all brass instrument valves? Surely not all...as they were the go-to plater for many a brass tech shop in the US for more than a generation.

While I agree that one shouldn't attempt surgery on other people's valves without thorough professional training, I don't think one should be alarmist about this operation. It's a set of simple, precision steps requiring precision measuring instruments and tools, but many valve jobs don't involve the complete rebuilding of a horn or its valves. Brass instrument repair shops equipped with a good plating setup have been replating and rebuilding valves for years and there is more than one rebuilder in the country who can accomplish this for a reasonable fee. There are many techs who will rebuild valves and send out the pistons for plating to spec, then lapping them down to fit. Claiming that there are only one or two places in the country who can properly rebuild a set of tuba valves is just marketing talk. Send your valves to someone reputable with a known good turn around time and a guarantee and be done with it. Get a recommendation from friends or known good repairmen.
royjohn

[The Big Ben]

Ibut... I have strong reservations on the delivery of a quality "drop in and play" fit. Its my warning to players that the fit needs to be proper, as in tolerances of.001" and no more.

So if I were to get a set of MAW tuba pistons, and they dropped in and sounded fine, then we're good, am I right?

If the fit is too loose, the won't sound fine. If it's too tight, they won't drop in. Is that overly simplistic, are there practical issues that are important but wouldn't be evident right away?

I was wondering this also. In earlier MAW threads, there was talk of moving MAW valves into one horn then taking them out and then selling the MAW valves to someone else who put them in another horn.

Are the piston bores of the MW horns (new, unused, from the factory) all within a .001 +/- of each other? Are the MAW sold with the proviso that they are "machine to fit"? Is it practically possible to expect a set of pistons to fit a set of bores when they are made by different people in different places?

[toobagrowl]

Anderson was the 'big player' for valve-plating/rebuilds in the US. Now that they no longer do it, that means a lot more of that biz will go to the few here who do it

Outside of the US, there is the mentioned Meinlschmidt. I believe someone a while back (Elephant?) also mentioned Voight Brass, who fabricates brass instruments and valvesets. Both are in Germany, and both probably expensive

[Daniel C. Oberloh]

[quote="bloke"] Two of us who fix stuff have already suggested sending as much valve rebuild work as he will accept to Dan Oberloh.

The "be cautious of MAW valves" remarks which seem to have appeared (motive?) are puzzling.

I'm sorry you took it that way, Joe. The comment was within the confines of the topic of valve rebuilding, materials and tolerances. That was what was my primary focus. It is possible that an aftermarket drop in valve may or may not be as good a fit as one would desire and expect, my comment was a simple heads up on the matter. I was not slamming on anyone or anything. Again, I'm sorry that I did not articulate it clearly.


Dan'l

[Lee Stofer]

I haven't been on TubeNet for the past two weeks or so, so I missed the earlier part of this thread. After receiving the call from Anderson Plating to alert me of their master valve restorer retiring, and informing me of a very short deadline to send anything else that I wanted done by them, I prepared and sent in 9 valvesets. Speaking to the foreman last week on the deadline day of August 31st, he said that word of them discontinuing this service brought in an overwhelming response, and he says that he has no idea if all of it (including mine) can be done before the valve restorer retires. In the original call, Mr. Anderson told me that they had tried training 2 or 3 people to succeed him, but no one had "made the grade." Anderson Silver Plating Co. has been my go-to for all plating needs for 15 years, so I'm in the process of finding a new go-to for valve plating. Anderson is still my go-to for instrument plating, and another batch of my Stofer-Geib mouthpieces will be there for plating as soon as I get them buffed and packed. I plan to speak with Mr. Oberloh, and explore other options if he is too busy (or just wait in line, patiently).

The importance of spending the money and getting valves done correctly cannot be overemphasized. Some of my my most miserable experiences in playing and repairs has involved valves that have been neglected, abused, badly repaired, or a combination of the above. Valve casings wear faster at the top than at the bottom, so the, "quick 'n dirty" valve job where the pistons are plated a bit, then someone tries to lap them in and "make them work" is almost always a recipe for disappointment. In such cases, if the top is tight-enough to seal, then the bottom will seize, and it it is lapped enough to have full range of motion, the top is too loose again. Only rarely have I asked for a piston to be plated to specs., and that is when the casing measures to be so close as to allow this. This is normally only on a nice instrument I do not want to disassemble, and where only 1 or 2 valves need attention.

When sending in work to have valves plated, I remove all slide tubing from the valve cluster, clean the casings and pistons to as close to perfect as I can make it, including top-and bottom caps, repair threads as needed, replace valve guides as needed, check stems, and replace/make new ones as needed. When necessary, I go through my finger button collection to come up with a matched set, or fabricate something. Once everything is clean and dry, I reassemble the valves dry, with new regulating felts and corks, and new springs. When I receive the valveset back, it is truly as good-as or better-than-new, and I'm ready to rebuild a horn with confidence.

Concerning MAW valves, my experience with them has been quite good. One should not expect a set of these valves to automatically fit any particular horn, and Martin has emphasized this repeatedly in our conversations. He understands the necessity of really good, accurate machining and fitting better than most, and whether you receive some of his valves that were made by Meinlschmidt in Germany, or valves that he has re-worked here, the quality in my experience is first-class.

The MAW pistons do make an instrument play differently. My Stofer CC tuba #0002 has MAW pistons, and I found that it was so open that I had to modify my approach to playing it, compared to one of my horns with traditional pistons. One conference-goer play-tested #0002 for about 30 seconds, put it down, and said, "It's just too easy to play!" The Stofer CC already had good tone and intonation, so there was negligible change in that area, but it felt like it had almost no resistance, making a .689" bore tuba feel more like a .750" bore instrument, but without harming the response or intonation. I have had one customer that thought it felt, "too open," and he purchased #0005 with traditional pistons, saying that he thought it needed a certain amount of resistance. That's why I am planning to continue to offer the tuba both ways, because not everyone plays the same, or wants the same thing. One final note concerning the wearing of the MAW valves - I played serial number #0002 for several months with the MAW valves before selling it, and found no appreciable difference in wear, or in needed frequency of cleaning/oiling of these valves. If you keep them clean and lubricated, they should last indefinitely.