Taking apart a Holton TU331BB

[Rob]

Is anyone familiar with this tuba and has undone those neat little allen head screws that let the main section of the tubing lift off of the horn? I'm looking at them and thinking that it would be a hell of a lot easier to clean and polish the outside, and clean out the inside if I don't have to worry about bumping the bell and hurting something.

It looks as if it should just unscrew and likely my guess would be there is possibly a rubber o-ring inline with the connection of the tubing. So if anyone's any experience with this I'd appreciate using your experience to supplement my soon to be experience...

Thanks,
Rob McCarty

[Rob]

Thank you Bloke, I hadn't given thought to the possibility that perhaps it was made that way because it was easier and faster. This particular tuba does have a very tight wrap and is quite compact so that's probably one of the ways they pulled it off. I had thought that it might not be easy to pop it apart with the finesse that is needed for brass. I likely should pause and think and remember how well I did at soldering the bell collar elbow back together on my sousaphone...

And yes, Scooby, it is the Harvey Phillips but for some reason TU331BB is just so much easier to remember..(and I won't mention I had to look up the model number online).

Thank you both,
Rob "going to try to find smaller fingers to polish my tuba now" McCarty