Horn dorn® Spring 2012 J.W. York addition.

[Daniel C. Oberloh]

Happy May yall. I am a little late with the Spring 2012 addition of HP but will make it up to you with a supplemental euphonium addition in the very near future.

I just completed this puppy and thought a few of you would get a kick out of it. What started out in 1914 (or there about) as a three valve top-action 6/4 BBb tuba, made by the J. W. York & Sons Band Instrument Company, has been transformed into a 4+1 front-action BBb. I must admit I am a tad embarrassed at the length of time these projects take but fortunately the folks who commission such work with me are very patient and (for the most part) understanding.



The original state of this horn was pretty bad. It was adorned with many cracks in the large branches and the bell had been pretty bashed up and had a nasty puncture that had been poorly repaired and patched. Everything from the #6 branch to the mouth-piece receiver was remade (fabricated and built up from scratch) including 90+% of the braces.



The valve block and rotor valve were supplied by MW the 5th linkage , thumb-ring, etc. and everything else was made in house. The good part about this is that now I have the technical details ironed out, the other two identical projects I have waiting should go a bit smoother.




Below, For scale, I have a pic of me holding this monster. I am a bit over 6' 4'', the horn is 38'' tall with a bell that is 23'' across. Its big, nuff said?



I was inspired to make a BBb design that was configured similar to the two CC York tubas that belonged to Mr. Jacobs. But instead, I wanted the elusive York #3 to be stylistically the same but configured as a proper BBb model had B. Johnson chose to build one at the time he was creating the the other two. Hey, no one said #3 was in CC.

Anyway, hope you like the pics.


Best regards,

Daniel C. Oberloh
Oberloh Woodwind and Brass Works
http://www.oberloh.com

[bisontuba]

Amazing work!!
mark

[bububassboner]

Wow beautiful! Do you have a before picture of the horn as well? I bet this thing is an amazing player.

[Daniel C. Oberloh]

This is the same model but not a pic of the same horn. It does however give an idea of what I started with.




Dan'l

[acjcf2]

Noteworthy!

Jim

[Art Hovey]

I love it, but my (meaningless) vote would be to omit the 5th valve on the next one, or make it removable. That beast must be heavy enough without it.

[daveinem]

So beautiful.

[Daniel C. Oberloh]

Ian,
Sometimes we have to strike a balance. The bell is the sound and that is the main reason for this project to begin with. The past bell repairs on this horn were very detrimental to its integrity and proved quite difficult to clean up as the metal was badly stretched and hammered so thin at the point in question that it could only be corrected so much. The blemish in the bell left from the inlay, is a trade off that allowed me the ability to restore the proper shape of the flair and stiffen it to the correct temper.

Patching would have been more unsightly and would not have allowed for the satin finish as the process would have deformed the bell around the patch (if masked) and would have warped the crap out of the patch and the bell if left unmasked masked. Many years of hard earned experience has taught me that when restoring old brass instruments, we can still make them look and play decent but one needs to know the limits and understand that sometimes our desires are not reasonably obtainable.

Dan'l

[tofu]

STUNNING!

Almost as sexy as Kate Upton.

Dan can you tell us how it plays?

[The Big Ben]

I've heard this horn. Pretty nice sound.

[Steve Marcus]

Dan, without revealing who the owner of the horn is, to what town is it returning?

[toobagrowl]

Beautiful tuba Looks brand new.
That tuba looks like one of those extremely rare situations where a vintage horn was safely tucked away in a case for many decades, never used, only to be found in near-mint condition and then polished up!

[skeath]

That is one of the most beautiful horns I've ever seen! Nice work!

[Steve Marcus]

This forum and/or the TubaEuph Email List is responsible for coining the terms, "BAT" and even "BART."

Now, Dan, after years of seeing the phrase "horn dorn" on this forum, have you truly filed it as a registered trademark or just had your tongue in your cheek (difficult to play tuba that way)?

[Daniel C. Oberloh]

Steve- No on the ®, its just me being a smart-***. But, it is a term I came up with long before I introduced it to Tubenet back in Sept of 2005. My shop website has always felt pictures were better then a truck load of boring text and because so, we eventually coined it as horn-dorn. I have always encouraged other Repair Techs to be proud of there work and show off there creations as I was encouraged to do back when I was new to the trade.

Oh yeah, the tuba will be shipped to New York City. Hows that for vague?

Dan'l

[scottw]

Stunning! You should take pride in turning out something of this caliber. Thanks for sharing.
Scottw

[ztuba]

Prokofiev and Wagner are ready to leave the grave to hear this one in action, I'm sure!

[Chris Olka]

Well Dan.....DAMN! Bravo!

[JohnSzkutko]

Brilliant instrument! Now, please post a video so we can hear it in all its majesty

[TubaTodd]

STUNNING!!!!!