TheBerlinerTuba wrote:I will say this Rick, if my foul language is enough to get you to post more on Tubnet then you are putting me in a bind here.
[bowing] A very good comeback.
Regarding Du-Bro linkage, all of you bring up very good points and concerns....
The challenge for me is (maybe "was") in finding alternatives. I first installed DuBro linkages over 30 years ago, before the web made such research easy, and in the day when I wouldn't have even known who to call to find out where to enquire about miniball linkages. And they worked very well compared to what I had before, and still do. There are those like Dan Schultz and Lee Stofer who are artists at making the old pin-and-tube S-linkages work well, but it's not easy and requires special tools and techniques. And it only works on tubas that had them in the first place. I installed DuBro links on the following instruments:
1. Cerveny-made Sanders 1314U (from Custom Music), which came with similarly cobbled-together plastic ball ends, possibly speced and maybe installed by the importer. Except that the ones they used were mounted on 2-56 threaded rod (rather than the 4-40 I used), used a much smaller ball and (plastic) socket, and had no adjustment screw. The ball is about the same small size as on the uniball arrangement. The threaded rod was covered with raw aluminum tubing. I bent one by accident by pressing too hard on the paddle (not really, but it sounds funny). The DuBro linkages were a vast improvement, functionally and aesthetically. I was living in Austin when I made this conversion, making it closer to 35 years ago.
2. The early DVS or whatever they were called white plastic ball linkages on my Miraphone 186 Bb tuba from about 1980 or so. They were cracked and had to be replaced. Miraphone machined connecting rods for those things that looked very nice, and better than what I installed, but there functionality and durability won out over aesthetics. Only a couple of years later, Orpheus Music, the Miraphone importer (when they were in Sunnyvale) relocated to San Antonio, and I could have gotten all the spare parts I needed easily. Except that my DuBro linkages were working so well it never occurred to me to pursue it.
3. An earlier 186-CC, middle-70's vintage, with worn-out S-linkages. That instrument was and still is in professional use, and still has the DuBro linkages I installed. They still work.
4. A 70's-era Rudolf Meinl 4/4 Bb. Lovely instrument, but the usual undesired rhythm section from the valve machinery. DuBro links cost $15 total and are still in place on that instrument, as far as I know.
5. I used the DuBro links for a tuning stick for a Vespro tuba that had a lateral main slide, requiring me to fabricate a bell-crank arrangement to turn the vertical stick motion into lateral motion. I confess I reused one of those those Miraphone machined rods in that project because it looked nice.
All of the above were converted before I moved away from San Antonio in 1993.
6. Fast-forward to the middle 2000's, when I bought that old Symphonie. At that time, they had a smaller fan club (with Bloke as the Cheerleader-In-Chief), but piston F tubas were still all the rage. I needed an F tuba that would compete with a community band for transcriptions of orchestral works that needed at least one player on an F tuba to sound right (Berlioz, for example). My Yamaha F tuba is a great little F tuba for smaller groups, but, as Lee Hipp once put it, there is a ceiling above which it will not go. Dave Fedderly had this old Symphonie on the Army-Conference floor for $3100. I compared it to a range of instruments, including my little Yamaha, in the noisy Elephant Room, using Ken Sloan as the "can you hear me now?" tester. The Symphonie, almost uniquely, could penetrate high ambient noise levels, and the price was right. But those uniball linkages were toast. The DuBro linkages seemed an obvious choice, given that I had positive experience with them already. But, mainly, they used parts I could source locally and install the same day, and I'm an impatient sort.
A few thoughts about unibal and minibal linkage. The unibal type linkage used on B&S tubas from the 60s until the early 90s are known to most of us as being rather clanky and noisy, and were often quickly replaced, as Rick has done with his tuba. What most people don't realize is that they were meant to be greased (not oiled) on a weekly to monthly basis and the owners who did this, even now 40 years later still have a relatively silent linkage. Unfortunately most of us didn't know this (shame on the factory/dealers for not advertising this) and after a few months they were worn out. Randomly enough, the factory still lists these under spare parts available!
(One must admit that what is available in Germany to anyone might only be available to certain repair shops or suppliers in the USA, none of which are particularly geared to serve do-it-yourselfers like me. In any case, I'm too lazy to jump through all the necessary hoops.) By the way, grease is just heavy oil emulsified in a soap, so oil works, but has to be applied more often. The issue is that the balls are small, with small surface areas, and that means the oil has to be heavier to prevent metal-metal contact. Truth be told, this is an engineering advantage for plastics, which are self-lubricating in low-temperature applications. The bronze lining in the fancier ball links will also be a bit self-lubricating, and that's what makes them fancier.
Minibal linkages come in a few versions. Seibold (minibal.de) for example has around 4 different types. ...
Excellent! Thank you for the source information. When I replace the uniball linkages on my current B&S, I'll use these, because I do agree that they look nicer. I'm assuming that Siebold will sell and ship to regular people in the USA.
Regarding B&S valves' conical design. Up until the early 90s, B&S had a number of old parts they tried to use up. Therefore you might see an occasional "PT-xx" from the 80s with a "fully conical valve block". However after reunification, there were efforts to reduce costs and the valve block design was taken into consideration. If you take out your calipers and measure every inlet and outlet ear on the block, you will see the ears on a modern B&S have become more cylindrical and on the large bore models this is even more pronounced with the 5-6 valves and the 1-2 valves sharing the same bore size. Notice that their marketing says "graduated bore" not "fully conical" which would not be true as with the Symphonie models. On a Symphonie or some PTs from the 80s, each ear on the valve block has a different size. Again due to parts sharing and using up spares, you will occasionally see some strange combinations. The way to spot this quickly is to look at the valve rotation direction. If valves 1-4 all turn in the same rotation, it's a modern block.
Good information--you should add this to your blog post. You made me go upstairs and look at my current F tuba, and, sure enough, valves 1-2 turn in opposite directions than valves 3-4, which I gather indicates the older valve block (and which is different than the current instrument pictured on the B&S web page). And the bore expansion is visible between each individual valve. As far as I know, my six-valve B&S (pictured above, next to the Hirsbrunner) was owned by a tuba player in London, who bought it new right around the time of unification. I don't know who that was, and the story passed through a few hands on the way to me, so anything is possible. It is not marked "Symphonie" and does not have a kranz, but everything else about it aligns with your description of the final production run.
Regarding differences of "sound" or "playing characteristics", to each his/her own. As others have said here, I haven't found another modern F-Tuba that I like as much. Some are easier to play ie more modern, but my best experiences with an orchestra F-Tuba has always been with a Symphonie F-Tuba.
Agreed!
Rick "hoping the discussion increased interest and readership" Denney
