That *OTHER* 1971 Mirafone 186 on My Bench

[the elephant]

I'm back! And today I finally sorted the 5th branch pretzel issue.



To get the BBb 5th branch to fit in the space for a CC 5th branch I chopped out about .75" of the middle, but it needed to be trimmed down another quarter of an inch to move it horizontally to the left (as you look at it). The issue was that the tube bends *sharply* as it exits the MTS outer leg tube. I had to shrink the tube so that the outer slide tube could be fitted about .25" FURTHER down WITHOUT CHANGING ITS ANGLE TO THE CROOK. I did a lot of fiddly, fussy dent hammer work to curve the end more and then straighten out the very tip.

The result is a near-factory CC 5th branch, save for the ferruled joint.

Here is where I am right now. I will post more photos after the valve section has been relocated, and all of the MTS area has been buttoned up correctly.

Going back in and re-doing all this work was a good choice for me; I'm quite pleased with this subtle-but-important bit of work.

[the elephant]

On the BBb 186 the space between the lower 4th runner and the top MTS tube is just under the diameter of a slide tube — maybe 5/8" or so. It is much less than the 2"+ of space between them on the BBb.

This tuba — the BBb cut to CC — needed the 5th branch reshaped quite a bit to mimic the 5th branch of the CC. It is like identical twins that you can still tell apart. They look the same until you inspect them carefully, and then their individuality starts to show. The BBb and CC 5th branches are just like that.

So, I made my two cuts, everything now fits perfectly, and I was made aware of *another* error on my part: I wanted the valve section to come down about 1/4" to 3/8" but when it was all test fit the valve section came down toward the MTS by more than a half-inch. I went indoors to inspect my CC and sure enough, what I was getting outside matched the horn inside on my bench quite nicely.

To get this all set up I had to once again remove the entire valve section from the top bow/inner branch assembly. (Ugh. Not again…)

As I was doing this I discovered that I could not simply move the valve section because of the top hoop of my homemade 4th slide. So I grudgingly took that apart.

OH, BUT WAIT! YOU'RE NOT TRYING TO MOVE THE VALVES UP, SO THE 4TH BRANCH WILL NOT BE BLOCKING THE TOP HOOP! THE VALVE SECTION IS BEING MOVED IN THE OTHER DIRECTION, YOU KNUCKLEHEAD!

Boy, do I feel stupid.

So, now that I have everything apart, I managed to correct several small mistakes that were buried in the core of the horn and could not be easily fixed. I am now actually much happier, despite having taken down the whole 4th slide loop. As a matter of fact, I decided that I did not like how the 4th loop looked. I had done a monkey's job of extending it once I realized it would be about two inches shorter than the one on the factory CC, and I decided to remove the craptastic splice and let it look normal. I can pull 4th a little more; it's quite a long slide.

Cheers!

You can see on this tuba the distance between the lower 4th runner and the upper MTS tube. It is a lot less than that of the BBb. However, it needs to be about half that for the leadpipe and everything else to fit correctly.


Here is the CC valve section. You can see how much more narrow that space is on the factory CC. At least now everything lines up on this tuba as it does on the factory horn. My "fake" CC is becoming a very accurate copy of a factory CC. Thankfully, I believe this is the *final* bug for me to squash.

[the elephant]

I have done a ton of work on this erstwhile BBb 186 over the past few days. It was all cleaning up soldering messes from wind and humidity. I have to use way too much heat about half the time I am out there working. It is irritating, but it is the situation I have for now.

When I cut the middle bit out of the 5th branch it ended up not being quite right. I had to make two more small cuts to make it fit something like the CC version of the part. Today I found out that it is *still* not exactly the same. I think it cannot really duplicate the CC part as the pigtail is just too different in its curvature.

Anyway, it is as close as I can get it and the valve section has been re-re-installed to the inner branches and top bow. Things look like they are really well lined up, but that funny bit of difference still won't allow me to install the MTS and valve sections so that everything fits exactly like on both my 186 CC and my Jin Bao 410.

I am declaring it to be "good enough" and moving on with alacrity. I know I did this before, but I discovered that I had placed the leadpipe too far up to touch the top bow; it would have had to hang out in a weird-looking, structurally ungood way that bugged me until I took it all apart again.

Now it is very close and I feel like I can move on and it won't bug me every time I look at it.

So my photos from today are not very interesting, as many of the last few batches. It is hard to make such tedious, minute adjustments even remotely interesting to anyone but me. But I will post them anyway.

One plus from this teardown and rebuild: All slides move just a bit better. I had not bothered with being very precise when aligning this horn's slides (except for 1st); they all worked well enough.

Now they all work as well as on my factory CC. When you change your timing belt they always tell you to do the water pump and thermostat at the same time. "While you're in there you really ought to take care of this other stuff, too." This tuba's slides and some other things ended up being an analog to the water pump and thermostat work.

The 2"+ gap between the MTS and the 4th slide is now much closer to where it should be, which is about 5/8" — I overdid it, and the gap is now closer to a half of an inch, but it will still work much better with the leadpipe contact patch with the top bow.


It is not exact, but it cannot be so because many of these old parts are slightly bent. It is a collection of compromises to make things *appear* to be lined up.


This tuba has three 1971 valves and two 1978 valves. They are not exactly the same. It just so happened that these were assembled alternating by year, so the differences in the physical alignment of the knuckles are sort of hidden in the noise of all the other lines and curves. The two newer valves are offset toward the valve-to-valve knuckles, so a dot-to-dot drawing shows that the bearings are not in a straight line, but a zig-zag. If the two 1978 valves had been next to each other you would be able to see this offset easily, but the order in which they ended up being assembled hides this pretty well.

[the elephant]

Today I have made the crooked brace needed to fix the lower MTS tube to the 5th branch.

Remember that both of these old 186 tubas had the very large brace from the bottom bow to the lower MTS tube, and for whatever reason, Miraphone had deleted that many years ago in lieu of a much smaller brace that fixes the MTS to a tube that is part of the valve section rather than the bugle. This makes it MUCH EASIER for me to get this difficult area to line up in a way that makes it look decent as well as functional.

The long brace to the bottom bow was a super finicky variable that was difficult to fit once it had been removed. I noted that my Jin Bao 410 had this funny brace there, so I investigated and found that all current 186 tubas have this "upgrade". (I use quotes because it costs a lot less and uses less metal, so I would consider this to be a "downgrade" — but whatever…)
I did not have any of these, so I made one for each tuba utilizing unused brace parts for the 5th slide that I got from Wessex. I am not sure if this is the same style of post used by Miraphone today, but I really don't care. I am pleased that my two braces fit their weirdly-shaped homes correctly.

Note that the factory CC horn has a correctly shaped 5th branch. The BBb horn's 5th branch, like all the other tubes, had to be shortened, but to make it the same shape as the CC branch I had to chop out material from the small end and from the MIDDLE. This left me an ugly ferrule right where the foot of the brace to the 3rd branch needs to be, creating large gaps around that foot and a bunch of fun filling them neatly.

Here is a photo that shows both of these crooked foot braces. Note the ferrule on the homebrew CC.

After lunch, I will reassemble the 4th slide circuit and do a lot of final cleanup work so that I can install the valves again.

[the elephant]

The first iteration of my homebrew 4th slide was really pretty decent. But after I moved the valve section down 5/8" in relation to the inner branches I gained some room for improvement. Here is the final version. It stays this way unless I decide to replace it with new parts.

Factory CC 4th circuit…


Wade's CC 4th circuit, using only the BBb parts chopped up to fit. NOTE: As I keep pointing out, please notice how the branches on this factory BBb are skinnier than those of the factory CC. I am worried about how this might affect the overall intonation now that this horn plays in the key of C. If it only makes the tone a bit lighter that would be great. Fingers crossed…


Fun shot…

[the elephant]

Git'er done!

[bloke]

(PANTS)


' sorry...That's the worst pun I could think of...to bump Wade's more-interesting-than-mine update back to the top of the list.

[the elephant]

Note that this horn retains its original nickel silver wire springs. My factory CC came to me with modern (very thin) steel springs. I like this *feel* better. My 163 had them, so it had the same, particular *feel* for the 12 years I owned it; it is very familiar.

However, these are VERY STIFF. They were horribly bent up and misshapen, and had been severely pulled with pliers to stiffen them. I imagine the valves were in pretty heinous condition and needed this much force to make them work with any sort of speed.

I have unwound one turn on each side of each spring and will likely take out another half turn after some use. (My hands are not as strong as they used to be.) I think with work these will end up looking and working fine. They are almost there now. But I might cave and buy new steel ones. <shudder>

[the elephant]

Wade's Homebrew CC 186 — Valve Section Wrap-Up
___________________________________________________________

I made needed adjustments to everything today. The link arms and Minibal joints all got filed to allow them to snug down at the correct clocking.

These *must* be aligned very carefully or they can drag and hang. I file the ends of things to make sure that when the Minibal and the arm are snugged down firmly that they are at the correct angle. This takes some time to get just so. Once all ten Minibals can be installed correctly I use blue LockTite to keep them that way.

The springs were in poor condition when Tabor got the horn, and, based on his photos, I was planning on having to buy new ones. However, these turned out to be old school nickel silver wire, which has a different feel than the more modern steel piano wire springs. (I had these on my 1958 Alexander 163. If you don't do something stupid like annealing them they can last forever.)

I decided to give them a try, and that ended up being a lot more work than I had anticipated. They came out looking much better but with a little less stiffness than I was hoping for. Before I worked on them, though, they were *stupid stiff* and would have made me cuss a lot every time I had anything technical to play.

Regardless, they work really well now and will probably end up staying on the horn. I like the "direct" feel — some steel springs feel mushy, no matter how tight you make them.

I made a video to answer some questions from a few guys, but it cut off before I was done. My wife's phone is full of music and photos, so there was not much room for my little movie. I will upload it anyway, just realize that I almost made it to my intended ending before the phone told me to STFU and turned itself off.

HAHAHA!!!



Again, a reminder of how this looked when I bought it. Note how much longer everything is as a BBb 186. (The first two photos were taken by Tabor Fisher.)


All levers, the rack, hinge rod, and springs were fairly trashed. Now everything works very well and without noise.


The lower spiral on the 4th valve was already cut off three coils less than what the others had. After shortening all the others it still has visibly fewer coils. It was all sorts of fun getting that spring to have the same tension and *feel* as the others, but it ended up working well.




This is the factory CC with its old-style 5th lever that I love. I will try to copy this with the parts I already have.


This is the valve section of the horn in this thread with its new-style 5th lever that I hate. You can see why, when you look at these two photos next to each other. Ugh, what a horrible lever!


Ginger helped me a lot today. <snicker>

[the elephant]

I made a video to answer some questions from a few guys, but it cut off before I was done. My wife's phone is full of music and photos, so there was not much room for my little movie. I will upload it anyway, just realize that I almost made it to my intended ending before the phone told me to STFU and turned itself off.

HAHAHA!!!

Here is that video. I am sorry that it cut off before I could go over the homemade 4th and 5th slides. I will do this again at some future date. Here is the incomplete video. Remember that this was a parts donor horn when I bought it, and it was in BBb. It is now looking like it could be a pretty legit CC tuba. It is not fully cleaned up, but this is not my beloved FACTORY CC 186, but a backup sort of test mule/toy. So it might *never* get fully cleaned up. How's that for honesty?

[bloke]

Your chatter ability - when doing an ad-lib video - is far superior to mine...which is why I tend to avoid trying to do them.

I really like the old-style thumb lever as well.

Along with blah, blaah, and blah-blah reasons, I sense flexing in the new-style levers (probably due to the expanse of the mount...??), which is (ok to use this...??) off-putting. |

If you're short on material, let me know, and I'll fish around for something from which you can fabricate/recreate the old-style curved teardrop. Maybe even one of the wider nickel silver French horn spatulas...

...Otherwise *"we professionals" shop here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2XbCWmY0eqY

________________________________________________
* an expression that makes my skin crawl far more than does "tweak"

[the elephant]

Spatula City, one of Yazoo City's most successful businesses!

I happen to have a French horn lever on my bench for this exact purpose, actually.

[the elephant]

Hi Wade,

The T-bar 5th handle works well for me on the Norwegian Star Eb.
The bar is 10-15mm from the thumbring, which is a good position for me.
I kind of like the short stroke, but that's a personal preference...

I attached a picture for your reference.

20201203_140907.jpeg

That is not the same lever as mine. Yours is a different model horn with a completely different bracket. And I like the T bar — I like the old platen much better, but I have made levers using T-bars in the past. What I am griping about is the mounting bracket, which locates the thumb's contact point in a place that is very uncomfortable when the other fingers are placed on their platens correctly. The currently used lever places the tip of the thumb in a *very*s different location than the old lever, which worked just fine. Changing it was a mistake by Miraphone, I believe.

My two beefs with this newer lever design are 1.) the distance BEHIND the other four paddles is much greater than the old-style lever, requiring an uncomfortable flattening of the palm and fingers to keep the 5th lever on the tip of the thumb, and 2.) the distance BELOW the other paddles, that makes that position painful to maintain for hours at a time.

The other lever is much healthier if you are an older person. The shape of a human hand when relaxed is in the same position (more or less) required to use the old lever. The thumb placement is one inch lower than the other four paddles and about 1.5" behind them. The new lever is about 2.5" below and almost 3": behind! The fault is in the mounting rack. Miraphone tries to fix this by making the throw of the lever very short, which also takes out most of the travel. I *HATE* having one valve travel a different distance than the others. It affects technique (timing) a lot. All the levers or buttons need to travel the same distance, IMHO.

So I dislike pretty much everything about the new lever system. I have no issue with the T bar as that is merely what you push. I have issues with two of the bar's location points in space in relation to the outer four paddles, and I have issues with the hinge location that makes a normal throw length impossible. The T bar itself is pretty cool, and I will retain that part, probably, though a French horn lever is on my bench right now to see if I can use the platen to make a new lever for this tuba.

Thanks for the photo!

[LargeTuba]

Those videos are awesome. I wish you could do more for your different projects!

P.S: Could you link your website? I lost it and can't find it.

[the elephant]

I have the means to do videos, but my wife is not all that good at camera work and is not interested in getting better, so that leaves me taking stills. I suppose I could set up a tripod (I have a nice one) and a camera or phone mount (I have both) and possibly doing time-lapse videos with actual, full video for some things. But that would take away a lot of time from getting stuff done.

I will think about it. Thanks, though. Your comment is appreciated!

Could you link your website?

Please let me know if these work. I have no idea if I am using the correct links. I have not captioned any of the recent photos because I have been pretty busy. I will catch up soon, though.

1971 Mirafone 186-4U BBb #6829 (the topic of this thread)
https://elephant.smugmug.com/Mirafone6829/n-ch85c2/

1971 Mirafone 186-5U CC #7454 (my excellent factory CC 186)
https://elephant.smugmug.com/Mirafone7454/n-W2jNGz/

1989 Kurath F — Removable Valves
https://elephant.smugmug.com/Kurath/n-QNPmc7/

1964 Holton 345 — Rusk Remover
https://elephant.smugmug.com/RuskRemover/n-XwCrHd/

1964 Holton 345 — Valve Section
https://elephant.smugmug.com/345valves/n-4VVKMW/

[LargeTuba]

Awesome, An amazing resource for an aspiring franken-tubist like myself!

[the elephant]

Today I taped up the valve section, inner branches, and top bow ("the assembly") to the bell and bottom bow of the excellent factory CC. It worked out very well and I think this horn will be about as good as my main one. As Joe said: wouldn't it be funny if the wall hanger junk horn turned out to be a better CC 186 than my actual (and excellent) CC 186? This very well could be the case.

I can't wait to get these two horns finished so I can play them side-by-side. I miss my CC, and today was the first time the parts from this old BBb have made any sound for probably 20 years…

Today was very promising!

[Tubajug]

Huzzah! The end is near!

[the elephant]

[the elephant]

Some people asked, so here you are. This is a much better comparison between the old-style 5th lever (on my factory CC) and the new-style 5th lever (on this horn, the homebrew CC).

This is the *real* CC 186. It has the classic 5th lever installed. I love this lever.


This is the *fake* CC 186. It has the current 5th lever installed. I hate this lever. I might spend the funds needed for another "classic" lever if this tuba turns out to be a winner. It might turn out to be okay for my hand. I will need to play this tuba a lot to decide.