Okay, so I have been working mostly on two other projects and have not had time for the Hilton for awhile, now. I had been putting off the next step because it was to tear down some stuff I was unhappy with, and the fit was very tight, so disassembly with a torch would be a major hassle for me. And yes, I had to bash up the end of my bottom bow, which literally made me sick to my stomach, and the large ferrule was slightly damaged, and I burned myself in four places.
However, that horrible task is done. I can now move forward once more. (One of my project horns is currently involving me getting my Z60 dent machine chops back up to snuff. Things are going very well in that regard. However, to really do a fine job on the Holton's bottom bow I need to purchase two attachments. So I will get to the bottom bow when I get those. Ugh… it's always about money…
Anyway, I am a nut for details, and I know what I like and want, and getting that all the time is not easy. Being really picky means spending more money on parts and supplies and eating up more of my time. What can I say? I am slow. I do not do this for a living any more - haven't in more than a decade, actually. But I am careful and usually pretty meticulous; after all this crap I want to be happy with what I did. I do not want to sit there on a gig, staring at my horn during a tacet, and thinking, "You know, I really wish I had done a better job on [insert ridiculously minute detail] when I had this thing torn apart." That sort of thing makes me sick over many years and many tacet sheets.
So one of my ideas with making the valve section removable is to be able to make a tool kit so that, in an emergency, I have everything I need to fully remove the valve section at a job site. I have had emergencies crop up on the road, 200 miles from home, that with a few simple tools could be fixed in a matter of an hour or less. So I want to carry this tiny tool kit in my bag with my supplies and such.
I have to use some Yamaha sousaphone braces on this tuba, because they offer the smallest space between two tubes of the braces I can get commercially. Yes, I can make these from scratch - it is easy to do - but I do not have the needed nickel silver bars and sheets to make me happy. I *will* probably make my own on future projects, but for now I am using stuff I can buy. And this means I have braces from Getzen, Conn-Selmer and Yamaha. All these come apart using different tools, and this bugs me to distraction. So I altered the little Yamaha braces to use the same hex key as the King braces. I know, that was a waste of time and money, but IT MAKES ME SMILE and not much does that these days.

So the Yamaha braces use a Japanese shaped Phillips head on a M3x.05 @ 6mm. I want socket-headed cap screws, so I bought some at the hardware store down the way. They are much better quality than the crap in the bins at Home Depot, by the way, and ONE FOURTH THE COST. I picked up 18 of these guys for the cost of four of them at HD.
You get what you pay for, except when you don't.
These fit the braces perfectly but were black oxide (read: Chinese black paint) and they used an M3 hex key. This need to carry another damned tool in my bag that could get lost irked me for a couple of days. I visited McMaster-Carr and found exactly what I wanted in a very high grade of stainless steel (think mouthpieces, surgical instruments, etc.) that won't allow the threads to strip out, the head to snap off or electrolysis to be much of an issue with the brass parts. The SS is of a higher quality than that used by Yamaha. PLUS - Yamaha Philips screws tend to deform so that the driver no longer fits if the factory guys installed them too tightly, which they do on some horns. (Or they used to back in the day. The screws in the braces of my 1983 YBB-641 gave up the ghost after three or four removal/installation rounds. I could never get them out again, eventually.) Part of the reason for this is the Japanese use a different shaped Philips head screwdriver. This is an issue today with electronics, but also with some cars. It just means that the drivers we use won't fit exactly right, and they slip out. The screws used by Yamaha are of a lower grade SS that is about a Grade 2 in hardness. (Normal for the automotive world is Grade 5, with Grade 8 being what gets used for off-road crawlers and such.) You can pretty easily crush a Grade 2 fastener with a 2 lb sledge. Anyway, the bolts I got from M-C are super hard and corrosion resistant (mil spec stuff that will suit my purposes quite nicely). I bought FIFTY of them for the same price as the 18 from the hardware store and the four from Home Depot. These are really nicely made, quality bolts, and they cost just about NOTHING in comparison to the Big Box.
So, to get the 3/32" hex key to work I had only three sizes to choose from, two of which were too small. So I ended up getting 5-44x.25" and a very nice tap (better than Irwin/Hanson) for dirt. The only issue was the shipping. I wish those guys would just take tiny orders like this and put them in a padded envelope and ship them USPS-slow-as-heck stuff to save money. I *hate* it when the shipping costs more than the purchase. So my bargain ended up being about the same as my driving to Home Depot - no savings at all. BUT - I have *exactly* what I want now.
Tonight I re-tapped the Yamaha brace bases and assembled these beauties. These are not strong braces as all the weight is on a post about 3mm thick and it is frequently in shear, so I am using five of them in one small area so that much of the brunt of carrying this tuba around is spread around lots of braces. I had planned on using the same six it had before; comparing the weakest parts of each brace I decided to use no fewer than ten to hold the valves to the bugle.
Here are my new beauties after surgery…
These are an original Yamaha brace kit and one with the same-fit, plain steel "black oxide coated" (yeah, right) Chinese socket headed cap screw from Home Depot.
Here are the slightly larger (with with a slightly smaller hex key size that matches what I am already using) sooper-dooper bolts from McMaster-Carr. Of note: The Yamaha unthreaded half has holes that are too large and allow for a LOT of slop, which I don't want on my personal horn. These new bolts fit the unthreaded part very well, with nearly no noticeable horizontal play.

