TubeNet

I, personally, choose to hire 4 or 5 subcontractors; one for each valve.
Then it is *never* my fault if I miss a note.
Expensive? Not really, on the last night I just tell them, "You've been paid enough, if you don't like it- sue me!"
I hear that works really well in other forms of business...

What is it? (beside being broken)

Hup

pot metal?

bloke wrote:https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/ ... 182eJNWz98

OK, it's a part from this tuba, right? Am I on the right track?

Give me another clue, please.

Hup

I think he's glad he hasn't sold any rotary valve tubas from Jinbao because Jinbao refuses, for some reason, to use quality components on any of their rotary valve instruments. Including from the "high-end" Jinbao vendors. They all suck, badly. I don't know why such vendors refuse to acknowledge the inferiority of their product. The valves on my John Packer F on the other hand are pretty much B&S quality, I love them.

Edit: Actually Schiller, yes Schiller, built by Jinbao, has in the past sold a 6 valve PT16 clone with genuine Minibal linkage. Those were nice. So Jinbao CAN do it, they just choose not too. And Wessex COULD be using them but chooses not too. That new $10K Kaiser will probably come with the same craptastic toothpick linkage they've always used.

How about that. Using Bloke's thread to trash Wessex on the Sponsor forum.

Hup

For your information, I know of only a handful of broken linkage ever occurring with Wessex tubas out of hundreds of tubas sold. When that has occurred it has been at the joint, but as I say it is a very rare occurrence, and then Wessex has sent replacement part at no charge under warrenty (we have spares in stock). The rods are actually made of stainless steel, so hardly weak and vulnerable to breakage.

Sorry if I hurt anyone's feelings. My criticism is only meant to be constructive. Maybe I'm the only one that thinks Wessex can improve their product. I mean if Schiller can do it, surely Wessex can.

Ken Crawford wrote:Sorry if I hurt anyone's feelings. My criticism is only meant to be constructive. Maybe I'm the only one that thinks Wessex can improve their product. I mean if Schiller can do it, surely Wessex can.

Wessex is always making improvements in every area of the tubas construction. Wherever we can improve, we do improve. For example I think the long running problem of difficult valve threads we have at last solved, but more on that later...

As I stated above, the rotary linkage has not been a big problem. Nice smooth and quiet rotary valves have been our priority, and that is now the case - and as with everything from Wessex quality checked by our US and European team of professional musicians before accepting - and nothing leaves the factory unless every aspect is fully satisfactory. Our quality checking is so rigorous that during our August factory visit only 47% of instruments were accepted to be shipped out and the factory QA manager was sacked!

Ken Crawford wrote: Edit: Actually Schiller, yes Schiller, built by Jinbao, has in the past sold a 6 valve PT16 clone with genuine Minibal linkage. Those were nice. So Jinbao CAN do it, they just choose not too..

Jin Bao would do it if their wholesale customers were willing to pay the extra buck-buck fiddy for quality components, but, we can't go blaming 'Murican bean counters for specifying crappy part because they're trying to wring every last drop of profit out of their products by cutting corners wherever possible, so let's just blame it on the Chinese manufacturers, right?

Years ago, there was a German website where a person was importing St Pete tubas from Russia to Germany, replacing the crappy Russian linkage with German parts, and reselling them.

If some Chinese tubas (whatever brand) are viewed as good tubas with bad linkages, why not just get them replaced right away? I'm guessing you would still come out with a pretty low price all told, especially for something brand new.

It is interesting to see the post where the Chinese QA was “sacked”. Most companies tend to get better at producing things the longer they are around. A typical example is a model of a car that has been out for several years, it usually has most of the bugs worked out. China often takes the opposite result, a process known as “Quality Fade”. There are numerous studies on it, but here is some relatively brief reading. It is good to know that Jonathan and others are actively working to combat this.

https://www.hg.org/legal-articles/quali ... hina-25441" target="_blank

MartyNeilan wrote:It is interesting to see the post where the Chinese QA was “sacked”. Most companies tend to get better at producing things the longer they are around. A typical example is a model of a car that has been out for several years, it usually has most of the bugs worked out. China often takes the opposite result, a process known as “Quality Fade”. There are numerous studies on it, but here is some relatively brief reading. It is good to know that Jonathan and others are actively working to combat this.

https://www.hg.org/legal-articles/quali ... hina-25441" target="_blank" target="_blank

The problem in many Chinese factories including JinBao is employee retention. These workers aren't seasoned experts that have been or plan to be building instruments for 30 years. The guy building tubas at JinBao may have been assembling toasters six months ago. And a year from now he might be making pants. So when the QA guy gets fired, the next guy with the most experience probably replaced him, and that guy probably has a whole 12 months of experience with musical instrument production.

Ken Crawford wrote:The problem in many Chinese factories including JinBao is employee retention. These workers aren't seasoned experts that have been or plan to be building instruments for 30 years. The guy building tubas at JinBao may have been assembling toasters six months ago. And a year from now he might be making pants. So when the QA guy gets fired, the next guy with the most experience probably replaced him, and that guy probably has a whole 12 months of experience with musical instrument production.

I can tell you that most of the staff assembling Wessex have been there for the last 3 years I have been going regularly to the factory. In fact some, such as the production manager are now good friends. Even when I am not at the factory, we still regularly communicate using the WeChat app - which is like the Chinese equivalent of WhatsApp.

Where there is a high staff turnover is in such areas as the polishing department. Anyone that has polished tubas knows it is a very dirty and tiring job. So not surprisingly as soon as they can find something less arduous, they do move on. It is probably no coincidence, that the number one reason Wessex rejects instruments is polishing issues, such as micro-scratching under the lacquer.

What happens to the rejected tubas (which are otherwise fine, except for scratching under the lacquer)?

Maybe they end up in 3rd world countries... like pre-printed Super Bowl Champion shirts for the losing team. :)

bort wrote:What happens to the rejected tubas (which are otherwise fine, except for scratching under the lacquer)?

Most go to a tubas grave yard - yes there is a floor at factory with hundreds of rejected Wessex. A sad sight Only of use if we want a part for new product development.

Before you ask, we have considered selling as B-stock, but so far have not reached any conclusion on that.

What we did do the end of last factory visit, and plan to do this next one is carry out a preliminary inspection before the tubas go for lacquering or plating, to try and get finishing problems corrected, before it is too late with the final finish being applied.

bloke wrote:In most factories, the polishing people are the highest-paid, because they could easily destroy a whole bunch of other craftmens' work ~OR~ they could (as is their job) prompt people (who are very impressed by "shiny") to buy the product.

The workers in China are also the highest paid - but there is no getting away from the fact that holding a tuba up to a buffing wheel is a hard job. The workers doing such look like they have come out of a coal mine.