Dan's new photos @ oberloh.com

[Bandmaster]

I am confused now ... in Dan's walk through he says "Mouthpipes,
"First off, last on"". Here is a pic with it on first. Is there a different process for different makes?

If you do think about it, it makes sense. The bell, bottom bow and leadpipe were damaged on a silver tuba. The bell and bow repaired and in need of replating. A new leadpipe made and in need of silver plating. So these parts are assembled and sent to Anderson's to be silver plated so they will match the rest of the horn. Now it all makes sense, right?

[ztuba]

sometimes I do think too much.

[pgym]

I am confused now ... in Dan's walk through he says "Mouthpipes,
"First off, last on"". Here is a pic with it on first. Is there a different process for different makes?

If you do think about it, it makes sense. The bell, bottom bow and leadpipe were damaged on a silver tuba. The bell and bow repaired and in need of replating. A new leadpipe made and in need of silver plating. So these parts are assembled and sent to Anderson's to be silver plated so they will match the rest of the horn. Now it all makes sense, right?

But why attach the leadpipe to the bell before sending the parts off to be plated? If the leadpipe is "first off, last on," wouldn't that require unmounting the leadpipe from the bell when it got back from Anderson, attaching the other parts, then re-attaching the leadpipe? Why not simply send the bell+bow and leadpipe as separate pieces?

[Mike-ICR]

IMO the "first off, last on" concept only really matters when the leadpipe goes directly into the valve set. In this case there's a slide before the valves. They say "first off" because the pipe needs to come off before you take the bell off or the valve set out. Here, you can achieve both by removing the slide. They say "last on" because, in my experience, the pipe never fits back on properly. It usually needs to be re-bent to fit the bell and carefully fitted back on to the valve section. Here, you can adjust the slide tubes to make everything fit properly. Dan had the opportunity to repair the bell, make the new leadpipe and fit everything back together before sending it all away to be plated.The leadpipe was probably the last thing on (even though it didn't have to be) before the bell was removed for plating. If it was already fitted and soldered in place then why would he remove it (in this case he didn't have to) to have it plated separately and then take the chance of it not fitting later. You also take the chance of botching up the solder job (not that Dan ever would). The fewer solders after plating, the better.

[Mike-ICR]

Why not simply send the bell+bow and leadpipe as separate pieces?

For beauty's sake, Dan prefers not splotching an otherwise seamless silver plating job by unnecessarily lead-soldering newly silver plated parts together.

Think about it:

If he can assemble the tuba, solder the bottom bow to the bell, solder the mouthpipe to the bell (and to the receiver brace), remove that assembly from the rest of the instrument (as he never soldered the bow to the rest of the tuba...nor the bell to the rest of the tuba...nor the mouthpipe to the 1st casing knuckle), silver plate all of that as a unit, and then (as carefully as possible) lead-solder that "assembly" to the rest of the instrument (at the less-conspicuous solder joints), isn't the final product going to look a lot better?

On that note, if you were the one paying the $$$ for the job, would you want to see all those solder joints? especially in front of your face while playing? Dan does beautiful work but silver stains very easily. The seams would never be as impressive as they are this way.

[ztuba]

yeah Dan is the man.. if he does it that way it is for a reason .. I didn't know that that horn was the one with the little tuning slide thing before the valve set. totally makes sense now.