But first, here is a before picture linked from my web page:
You can't see how deep the bottom-bow dents are in this picture, but you can see how the fourth-valve-branch braces to the outer bow have been punched into the bow. You can almost but not quite see how each valve branch lived in its own world, pointing in some unique direction. The first valve was too long to allow sharpening up the fifth partial, and moving the slides during play was impossible in any case because of misalignment. The valves weren't that bad, but they were clunky and they were showing some wear.
(The obviously misaligned first valve slide and the trumpet-sized finger buttons were addressed by Lee Stofer, who did initial playability repairs on the instrument right after I bought it.)
So, Joe and I started a discussion of what might be done to fix the problem. I had some principles going in:
1. I wanted it to look a bit better (especially from a distance), but without undoing the evidence of its long life, and as long as doing so didn't prevent a needed repair. I had a limited budget, and appearance was not the highest priority.
2. I wanted it to play and operate the way a professional tuba should, with easily adjusted slides and good valve compression.
3. I didn't want any brass removed. That meant no sanding and only minimal buffing.
4. The bottom bow needed to be pulled to allow ironing out the dents.
My goal was to have an instrument that might have been owned by professionals for its long life, rather than showing evidence of the school battering and neglect that it had been subjected to before being rescued by its previous owner.
A picture of the valves wouldn't mean much, so take my word for it that the visit to Dave Secrist and the bloke-fitted nylon valve guides have restored full compression and quietened the valves down considerably.
The attached photo shows the Holton after repair. The rubber O-rings are not just for show. The slides are fast enough to bang home without them. You can also see where Joe removed about 1-1/2" of the first valve. You can see how all the slides are now completely parallel. You won't see any dents. All the Holton weirdness in the way the bottom bow fits the instrument has been preserved--it plays as well as just about any big tuba I've ever tried and I didn't want to screw with success.
Now, about that lacquer. We tinted standard lacquer using lacquer dyes that Joe obtained from Allied, and the objective was to blend with the old color. But that wasn't easy. The old color was yellowed from age, dulled, and almost green. With hard edges of old lacquer, any tinted lacquer overspray will affect the old lacquer. This could possible be minimized by the sort of masking that airbrush artists do, but the resulting spider veins would probably look worse. Again, the objective here was not to eliminate the evidence of a long, hard life, but to make it look as though the instrument had received a bit better care. And since my objective was not to make the horn look new, I went in with a small budget and Joe stuck to it. The budget was far less than one might expect for a "rebirth". From any distance (such as off the stage), the artifacts of repair are pretty subtle.
Rick "thinking the photos don't do justice to the important details" Denney
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