How It's Made: The Tuba

[rodgeman]

Yea - it is a good one. My seven year old son and I watched it. I just got into Tuba's last December and then it was on TV.

Interesting note - on this tuba they used pitch before bending the tubes. On the Shires bass trombone they use ice for their episode of How It's Made.

Thanks for sharing this!

[The Jackson]

"Famous orchestral composers from Stravinsky to Gershwin"

Yes... All those many years between the times of Stravinsky and Gershwin...

[averagejoe]

At 3:03 they show the stenciling on the bell in the beginning it is a 1135, later out pops a 2341. I wonder if they just forgot to record the stenciling and then added it being done to another tuba later. Or perhaps the King factory wasn't making 2341 bells that day.

[bort]

They could have stood to get a better sound clip for the end of it too.

So many pictures of tubas, so little tuba music...

[imperialbari]

If it only takes 10 minutes to create a tuba, how comes they are that expensive?

K

[tubaguy9]

I wonder how hard that ice stuff is to bend. I know pitch isn't too bad, but it would be on that size of tube...

[eupher61]

and the rhythm is absolutely LOUSY. Otherwise, a great clip. Thanks for posting it again.

[Dan Schultz]

I wonder how hard that ice stuff is to bend. I know pitch isn't too bad, but it would be on that size of tube...

It's not just plain water. It's actually a slurry of several things including water, ethylene glycol (or maybe alcohol), and a dab of glycerin. It's not a solid mass of hard ice but rather resembles pitch but doesn't have to be burned out afterwards... just melted out.

From what I understand, using the water mix is not necessarily mechanically better than using pitch but it's a more streamlined and environmentally-friendly way of doing things. I still use pitch to do my bending. It's a mess to deal with but in a small shop it's not too bad. I can imagine the smoke, mess, and stink from using pitch in a production environment. Yuk.

[Daniel C. Oberloh]

A great video, very informative but as is always the case, much is left out. Still, they touched on most of the important stuff so you get the idea of what is involved.

It's not just plain water. It's actually a slurry of several things including water, ethylene glycol (or maybe alcohol), and a dab of glycerin. It's not a solid mass of hard ice but rather resembles pitch but doesn't have to be burned out afterwards... just melted out.

From what I understand, using the water mix is not necessarily mechanically better than using pitch but it's a more streamlined and environmentally-friendly way of doing things. I still use pitch to do my bending. It's a mess to deal with but in a small shop it's not too bad. I can imagine the smoke, mess, and stink from using pitch in a production environment. Yuk.

Actually, removing pitch from the tube is not as difficult as one may think. The parts can be put in an oven and the pitch melted out mostly at a relatively low temperature, the remaining film is easy to remove in a solvent bath like Ferrees "cold cleaner" or cold lacquer strip. Torching the parts and burning them out is smelly and if the parts are larger, dangerous as the stuff is like napalm. Aside from the fire hazard , the smoke and stinking the place up, burning out pitch runs the risk of annealing the tubes which may not really be desirable for a completed part like a mouth-pipe or bow. A friend of mine told me that the ice used in the factory where he worked at the time was Palmolive (sp) dish washing liquid, frozen soap. I use a special low melting point (about 160oF), metal filler material instead of pitch or ice. I use to use lead which worked very nicely but the removal of lead required six-hundred-plus degree temperature to melt out. But after having a tube rupture during the melt-out process, I decided to make the change to a more costly but much safer method of filling and bending tubes. Now I remove the filler in a boiling-out method that is much cleaner and a lot less risky.


Daniel C. Oberloh
Oberloh Woodwind and Brass Works
http://www.oberloh.com" target="_blank

[Rick Denney]

I use a special low melting point (about 160oF), metal filler material instead of pitch or ice.

Sounds like Cerrobend or Cerrosafe, widely available modern versions of Wood's Metal. Mostly bismuth plus tin, lead, and cadmium, and with boiling points in its various versions well below the boiling point of water, making it easy to remove by boiling. Works well, but it isn't cheap, though it can be reused. It's available from gunsmithing supply houses and McMaster-Carr, but I'll bet Dan has cheaper sources.

Rick "who has used it for making casting models, too" Denney

[Daniel C. Oberloh]

Sounds like Cerrobend or Cerrosafe, widely available modern versions of Wood's Metal. Mostly bismuth plus tin, lead, and cadmium, and with boiling points in its various versions well below the boiling point of water, making it easy to remove by boiling. Works well, but it isn't cheap, though it can be reused. It's available from gunsmithing supply houses and McMaster-Carr, but I'll bet Dan has cheaper sources.

Rick "who has used it for making casting models, too" Denney

Yup, its pricey stuff but worth the expense if you use it as much as I do. Last time I ordered it from a specialty metals source in Seattle; it cost $120 a billet = about 3 lbs. each. If you plan to make and/or bend tuba or euphonium bows or fill and block a french horn bell-branch, it's going to cost ya. Still a fair trade off to avoid the risk of being painfully burned.

A) Contact with skin @ 190oF= ouch! maybe hit the first aid kit for some water-gel.

B) Contact with with skin @ 600oF+= OUCH!!! Off to the emergency room for painful cleaning, silvadene and a costly doctor bill.


Daniel C." glad spend the $$ to avoid any chance of major future physical injury" Oberloh