Free oil that comes with a Miraphone tuba ?

[ralphbsz]

Just out of curiosity: When you buy a factory-fresh Miraphone tuba, it comes with a bottle of oil in the little tool bag. Looks like a Hetman bottle, but without any label.

Anyone know exactly what oil it is? Hetman's rotor #11 or something like that?

This is purely an academic question, to fulfill my curiosity.

[Dan Schultz]

I've not seen this so cannot comment.

However... I'm curious... is this for piston or rotary models?

[Mirafan]

A small bottle of oil came with my Mirafone 186. It is marked "Mirafone" as well as
Hetmans. It is a very light oil and I suspect it is Hetman's #11 light rotor oil.

[Dan Schultz]

Out of curiosity... what method does Mirafone recommend for rotor lubrication these days?

At one time I believe they said to oil the bearing points only and just let normal moisture that's introduced into the horn to seal the rotors.

[Mark]

It is Hetmann's.

[ralphbsz]

This bottle of oil came with a rotary (291, the CC Bruckner). It does really feel exactly like Hetman #11.

Out of curiosity... what method does Mirafone recommend for rotor lubrication these days?

At one time I believe they said to oil the bearing points only and just let normal moisture that's introduced into the horn to seal the rotors.

That's sort of a funny question. The tuba came with a "manual", which is a fold-out color-printed little brochure, with maintenance instructions in both English and German. The pictures are of a trombone slide, and of valve sets from a considerably smaller instrument (could even be from a rotary trumpet). The German is much more idiomatic, and must be the original language, with the English version translated by someone who writes grammatically correct but unusual English. None of the pictures show tuba-sized valves.

The maintenance instructions for valves are a bit odd, because there are separate sections for different types of valves. Let's skip the section for piston valves. The first section is for rotary valves (Drehventile). Here they say to lubricate only at the bearings, and do so very lightly, because excess oil will leak into the valve casings, and make them gummy and slow. This makes sense so far, and agrees with TubaTinker's observation.

The next section describes exchangeable rotary valves (ATV valves, which must be a German acronym, for "austauschbare Ventile"): For those, unscrew the arm from the axle (with the screw at the top), remove the bottom cap of the valve, then push the valve out the bottom. Wash the valve body with warm water, clean the inside of the casing with a lint-free cloth, lightly lubricate it with rotary valve oil, and reassemble. They say that accurate alignment of the valve is guaranteed by a pin that comes through the side.

I'm sure tuba valves are not of the exchangeable type, and that the valve bodies can't just be pushed out from the top.

[Dan Schultz]

..... The next section describes exchangeable rotary valves (ATV valves, which must be a German acronym, for "austauschbare Ventile"): For those, unscrew the arm from the axle (with the screw at the top), remove the bottom cap of the valve, then push the valve out the bottom. Wash the valve body with warm water, clean the inside of the casing with a lint-free cloth, lightly lubricate it with rotary valve oil, and reassemble. They say that accurate alignment of the valve is guaranteed by a pin that comes through the side.

I'm sure tuba valves are not of the exchangeable type, and that the valve bodies can't just be pushed out from the top.

This makes sense in a 'German sort of way' of stringing together words. I've not seen a Miraphone tuba with a 'pin that comes through the side'... but I have seen other European rotary bearing plates that are keyed to their housings with a very small dowel.

However... that passage does imply that the entire rotor is oiled.