Beauty is only lacquer deep: Blueprinting my MW 2145

[bberlien]

I'd like to publically thank Dan Oberloh and his assistant Paul Avery for the work they recently completed on my MW 2145. What was a good example of this model is now an absolutely awesome tuba thanks to their time and efforts.
I bought this 2145 off this board sight unseen for what I felt was below market value. As you can see from this picture (one of many emailed to me by the seller) the horn looks to be in perfect condition, save for a few minor blemishes.

After a week, I accepted the fact that the horn played about 20-30 cents flat with the main tuning slide all of the way in, so I took my new tuba to Dan Oberloh.
I've known Dan for about 12 years. He’s done work on most of my instruments in that time frame and I trust him. Dan and I have also played next to each other in brass band for the past two years, so he knows my playing and what I expect of my equipment. Dan's experienced eye was able to catch MUCH more damage and poor repair work. The plane of the 4th valve slides was “twisted” and several of the larger solder joints were broken. Also, many of the braces were bent. Because the horn played flat, we discussed “major surgery” options to get the pitch up. In the end, I gave Dan carte blanche to strip the lacquer and make any repairs needed.
As it turned out, the entire horn ended up getting disassembled. Paul kept removing parts, and they kept finding poor work from repairs and from the factory – hardly any two parts aligned properly. Some rounded parts tried to straighten themselves out once removed (on a 10 year old tuba!) Here are some pics of Paul’s work:






Unlike many of Dan’s restorations, the only fabrication needed was a new receiver (I like the very large receivers from the MW 2000):


After complete disassembly, repair, realignment, and reassembly, this is one awesome tuba. The work took considerable investments in time and money (no way could I have afforded this when I was still in school). Blueprinting (to borrow a term from car guys) a tuba takes technicians with skill and equipment – Dan was able to re-round and fine tune the 1st and 4th valve slides with special equipment on his honing machine. I am extremely grateful to have Dan as a local resource, and more than satisfied with my investment:


In the end, when the tuba was properly assembled, the pitch was fine and required no cutting. The tuning slide now sits about 3/8" out. Thanks again to Dan and Paul for all their work.

[jonesbrass]

Awesome!! Great work and terrific story. She's a beaut!

[MartyNeilan]

When I had my 2145, I had to cut both the main slide and the 1st slide top get all notes in tune. The good news was, once the cuts were made, the horn played in tune on virtually every note with ease (just push 1 all the way in on D). The ONLY funky note was B natural right below piano middle C - I usually had to play that 12 or 3; it just didn't sit well on 2.

[Wyvern]

they kept finding poor work ...from the factory

That is quite alarming. I hope it was a 'one-off' poor job by an apprentice???

[TWTuba]

Great looking horn!

Maybe MW did the final assembly on a Monday morning, many moons ago, after a great festival weekend with much drinking, debauchery, and song, and the workers were a little off that day (and with parentheses, I can make this run on sentence go on forever).

[MartyNeilan]

The plane of the 4th valve slides was “twisted” and several of the larger solder joints were broken. Also, many of the braces were bent. ... Paul kept removing parts, and they kept finding poor work from repairs and from the factory – hardly any two parts aligned properly.

they kept finding poor work ...from the factory

That is quite alarming. I hope it was a 'one-off' poor job by an apprentice???

Leaving out the middle of that sentence can be quite misleading. It seems to me that the majority of the issues were caused by previous inept repairs and/or previous owner damage. Whether or not you like now MW horns play or sound, they are known for a very solid build quality, and I doubt they would have left the factory with much of the above stated damage. I certainly don't rule out slide misalignment issues, though, many mass produced horn modelss seem to suffer from this from time to time.

[Alex C]

they kept finding poor work ...from the factory

That is quite alarming. I hope it was a 'one-off' poor job by an apprentice???

No, this is common from every manufacturer!

1)A friend of mine worked with one of the major symphony players removing the bell from a brand new instrument to replace it with another. The solder work on the bell was abysmal, it was anywhere from an inch and a half thick to non-existant.
2)Another friend bought a new tuba and found one of the tubes was held on by lacquer, no solder on the either end of the joint.
3)I was talking to a technician last week who told me that one manufacturer in particular "always" leaves at least one solder joint on the valve block unsoldered.

A local tubist and I both had Alexander CC tubas which have notorious reputations for intonation problems. We had a technician unsolder, clean and re-construct (I don't think the work was detailed enough to call it 'blue printing') both horns. I don't think either of us complained about the intonation when we got the horns back, they were very useable.

Dan is restoring my old Holton for DP (from this forum). I am dying to find out if these tubas, re-buildt to his demanding specifications, are as good as I think they are. When he's finished, we'll find out.