That *OTHER* 1971 Mirafone 186 on My Bench

[bloke]

https://knifemaking.com/products/nickel ... 4485314696

You did great with your nickel-silver discs...
Somewhere (??) - I found them (in an array of diameters) in various gauges...(back when I was doing a bunch of work on my kaiser baritone).

23 gauge is what I chose, but they also had them in thinner and thicker gauges.

[the elephant]

Jürgen Voigt will make them to order, any shape, any diameter, even rolled to the radius you want.

However, once I get these *exactly* how I want them to stay forever, I might avail myself of some custom braces from Miraphone. Eva told me once that I have to provide the exact gap, the foot size/s, and whether they are angled or offset, and by how much. That would be ideal, but I am broke AF right now, so cutting them from scrap is what I have to go with.

Thanks for the link. I bookmarked it for future use.

[bloke]

I like the tone hole file.

I use one (two, because I'm always losing one of them...and - if I steal Mrs. bloke's - she gets hoppin' mad) all the time...

[the elephant]

How would you use that set of tone hole files to cut brace feet discs? And in my current situation that set, while very nice, is miles away from attainable. We are barely making our house payments and keeping the lights on right now.

[bloke]

Didn’t I see a tone hole file sitting on your table in one of the pictures?
(approx 2 inches wide/extra fine teeth)
I wasn’t referring to how it would be used, but just that I like it.

a non-tone-hole use:
filing down the edge/end of a piece of brass sheet metal or tubing, with (via the extra-fine teeth) that edge neither being gritty nor rounded (as the wide width of the file makes it easier to control), when done.

I reported the goof/double-post.

[the elephant]

I have two of those that I use for truing up tube ends. I would *really* like to find one just like this that has a file face that is about 8" long. I could *really* use that. Do you know of a file with this "grit" fineness at this width that is that long? Or (even better) some sort of file plate, with this specific tooth pattern and fineness that is like 8" SQUARE?????? I have so many needs for such a tool, but I cannot locate one. I do not even know what name it would be called, and you need to know that to find really specific things like this. It took me a while of searching before I found my granite surface plate because I did not know what to search for other than "granite leveling stone"; I had to read and learn to refine my searches. But "fine-toothed file plate 8x8" turns up pretty much nothing of use.

[bloke]

Ferree's has an 8" long, but it's only 9/10 of an inch wide.

Votaw has one that is 1-1/2 inches wide, but only 7 inches long...and most of the 7th inch (in the picture, at least) is smooth.

...$21 - $30

I find the "disc"-style tone hole files (NOT discussed, above) to be annoying/gimmicky (ie. "something to sell" vs. "something to use").

Of course, a machinist could make you a huge/flat surface in the form of a giant fine-toothed file...program it in, and let 'er rip...

The hardening, though, usually costs some dough, and certain alloys harden better than do others.

Yeah...I use mine (and Mrs. bloke's) for the same thing...
It's way easier to chop off a tube "rough", friggin' GRIND it down close to right, and then carefully FILE it to a finished end, than to d!¢k around with a jeweler's saw, or mount it on the lathe and cut it.

...' none of my biz, but I'd think it might be time to put your good-playin' Jimbo up for sale, and free up some cash (whether for tools, groceries, or house notes). With the top-down engineered economic destruction of the gig economy and small bidness economy (with only gubmunt and gubmunt-associated peeps still getting paid - OK...AND hardware/grocery superstore peeps, while doing from-home lip-service versions of their jobs), dough is gettin' scarce around blokeplace, too.

[the elephant]

I did not know of this company, and I will definitely be calling them to see if they can get me exactly what I want.

Thank you very much for the link!

[bloke]

Occasionally (not often), I might find myself in Greenwood.

The next time that occurs, might I be invited to follow down along the 49E Yazoo & Mississippi Valley Railroad path, and play each of those for a few minutes?

A "B-flat top bow retaper-and-swap" might (??) be a cool intonation fix (for us folks to be able to offer) for the old-old funky-flat-notes 186 C's...

...or maybe (??) just buy NEW C top bows (if their top curved areas seem to measure more like the B-flats) from Waldkraiburg, and install them on those old tubas.

[the elephant]

[the elephant]

No, no, please - keep on nerding out. I love good tools!

[the elephant]

Here are the two bottom bow braces I made using those discs from the other day. They came out really well, except that they have yellow brass posts. (These use a pretty large post and they have that relief in the center, so the nickel hinge tube I have would not have worked.

These need to be installed WITH the bottom bow as they cannot be inserted into their spaces with the bow already on the horn. I annealed the feet to be almost "dead soft" so that it would be easier to bend them enough to squeeze them into place and then reshape them without gaps. I did not want to smooth them too much in these photos or that annealing will stiffen back up. They are only there to confirm that I got the measurement of the post right correct. (I got one wrong and had to do it again.)





All this morning and part of yesterday I took a break from this project and worked on my nine remaining Mirapone valves. The results were worth it; all nine now have good action, tight bearings, no noise, and no meaningful leaks. They are like new except that some of them look pretty beat up. Some of them are fully dressed and some are naked or only have some of their removable parts. (Two are missing the adjuster screws from the rear caps, two are missing cork pates, etc.)

One is a new backup for the CC horn that was never needed. One is a Jinbao 410 5th valve that I *might* use on my next project. (I know, not really Miraphone, but I spent a LOT of time making this valve work well, and it is a real 5th valve, so it stays with this group of valves.)

One is the opposite number of the homemade 5th valve for Ethel, the topic horn of this thread. Ethel's 5th is actually a 3rd casing with a 1st rotor, so this "oddball" valve is made from the remaining parts of that unholy union. (It is a 1st casing and 3rd rotor.) It is a functional opposite of Ethel's 5th but will work as one if the stop arm and linkage are "under slung". It is actually much better than the 5th on Ethel.

The rest are the rejects from other projects, but now I can use any of them without wasting time sorting through them all to make sure I do not pick a lemon. Nice!

(The new valve is not in the photo. Whoops.)

[bloke]

I realize that brass posts don’t match the rest of the braces on your instruments, but I have some really early Miraphone braces in a drawer that feature nickel-brass flanges and brass posts... Also, one VERY old (low #) 186 (instrument) that features the same combination of materials on its braces, as well as brass outside slide tubes.
The nickel Krantz engraving on that same instrument is extraordinarily fancy.
Your braces look genuine.

[the elephant]

Today I continued to mess with stuff unrelated to this project, but of possible interest to some of you if only to show you that this can be done.

I made a 100% genuine imitation Miraophone 5th valve today out of the very worst of my nine remaining 186 valves. It was the one that had a badly bent stem; the rotor could not be removed from the casing for many years until I decided it needed to become an "irritating project" for me to work on.

This was a major undertaking as I first had to fix a huge leak and an elbowed stem that caused the rotor to have to be hammered in and out with great force. Now the action is just about where I want it to be, and the leak is *only* when it is open and the valve is noticeably out of alignment. The active position has no leaks. If the valve is aligned correctly it is just about airtight.

Today I was experimenting with the engraved coin that covered the casing top. Once it was off I realized I should take the opportunity to pull the upper slide knuckle and flip it, because this is a 3rd/4th casing that had the cork plate oriented like a 5th valve, and this was a valve I would have been just as happy tossing into the trash a few days ago before all that corrective work. So why not?

I could take the homemade 5th valve apart (3rd/4th casing with 1st/2nd rotor) and use that 1st valve and I would have the real deal instead of the kludge used on Ethel, the subject of this whole, long thread.

Today was very windy. The wind was rather chill despite the very nice temperature. I do not have an oxy-acetylene torch — only an air-acetylene rig; serious silver soldering work is hard to do with such a torch. Add the wind chopping a couple of hundred degrees off the flame at the tip and you have a very thick part that will NOT get hot enough to flow silver solder. So this took a long time, a lot of gas, and several attempts. The silver solder line is just tragic, with a huge amount of excess gobs all around. It really is embarrassing, but I am proud that I got this to work under these circumstances. Cleanup will be a PITA but I think I can get it done. Lots of filing. I don't enjoy hours of filing, but there it is.

Okay, so the casing was repaired, the knuckle has been pulled,d and reoriented. I work on the inner face of the knuckle joint to ensure no burrs could impede the rotation of the valve. All seemed to be good. The original valve worked well.

On to the valve swap to let me make all this work natively, and — of course — the replacement rotor does not fit. Not at all.

I puzzled over this for some time. I aided my mental digestion with copious amounts of curse words and dramatic stomping around. After a lot of bright light and magnifying lens work, I discovered that in my labors to fix the trashed rotor stem on this valve I had to sand and file the stem somewhat, making it THINNER. I then used my excellent Ferree's tuba rotary valve swaging tool and clamped down on that sucker "stupid tight" until I had shrunk the bearing down to where it needed to be.

Some folks think this is the wimpy swager that you tippy-tap with a mallet to roll over the edge of the bearing. This gives you a nice, tight bearing that wears out in a year or two. This is a monster that swages the bearing at least 4 mm. I usually do it several times, very hard, and will net a contact patch on the stem of about a quarter of an inch, which is actually very decent and will last many years.

And I did that do DEATH on this valve. It now works great and does not really leak. Mission accomplished.

Except that the friggin' bearing is now too small for a decent condition valve stem to enter.

I decided to use the original valve and modify the stop arm. I have a working one now, but it is quite ugly, and I need to clean it up. A lot. Like the ugly silver solder bead that is full of globs. I'll fix all this, but I'm not going to enjoy it too much.

THIS IS A WORK IN PROGRESS. Have some mercy on me. HAHAHA!!!

The coin was removed, and this takes a LOT of heat, so if the whole thing looks burnt up — it is.


That red knuckle used to point 90º to the right.


The danger of doing this sort of work is that the bearing or top plate could shift so that nothing lines up and the casing is ruined. I have always been lucky in this regard. I have *never* destroyed a rotary valve doing this sort of heating. I usually have to do a lot of work on it afterward, but they always function fine in the end.


Here is the removed "coin". (My term — I really need to ask Miraphone what this is properly called.)


After about 15 minutes in the vinegar bath, the valve is now partially cleaned up. Here you can see my altered stop arm. It works just fine, but I still have to grind off the top tab and thin out the body to give the Minibal link head enough clearance.


TBH — The stop arm post is not placed correctly. I have to heat it up again to get it off. Then I have to clean that area up again, set the two parts back up in my jig, and try much harder to get the placement just right. I need the extra clearance for the large Minibal head, so I wanted to place the disc on the edge of the stop arm centerpiece, but it is really difficult to get the thing lined up correctly this way. I will have to cut a small relief (much smaller than the one you can see the post used to live in) so that I have a positive contact point that I can feel when all that nasty silver solder paste flux is covering everything.

[bloke]

I feel certain that Wade has seen these before (likely, on Ev Gilmore's 186, if not on several other 55 to 60 year old Miraphone tubas), but - just in case anyone else has never seen these (and might like to see one),

here's a picture of a Miraphone 1960's-vintage brace which features a brass post with nickel-brass flanges:



Melton (aka "Meinl-Weston") - in Geretsried - was doing the same thing, fwiw, as can be seen on my kaiser bariton:


EEK! If/when I ever call this instrument "done" - and re-lacquer it, I'll first remove that brace,
and magnet-remove those little dentletts in the body.

[Tubajug]

So it's possible to heat something that's been silver-soldered enough to melt the solder and turn it? I was under the impression that once silver solder had cooled, it was pretty permanent.

I guess with enough heat, anything can be liquid again...

[bloke]

So it's possible to heat something that's been silver-soldered enough to melt the solder and turn it? I was under the impression that once silver solder had cooled, it was pretty permanent.

I guess with enough heat, anything can be liquid again...

You can do this, if you're Wade.
Don't try this at home, folks.

[the elephant]

Permanently "melting" two items together with a "melted" medium is welding. Welding cannot be undone unless you melt the medium *and* both original objects. You can undo welding using a grinder to cut the bonded area.

Brazing/silver soldering/hard soldering is still soldering, where two items are joined with a "melted" medium, but the surfaced of the two items are not also melted into the mix. Rather, the hard solder is melted to them like soft solder, but it takes a great deal of heat to undo this.

While you *can* take them apart, the melted brazing material is just about impossible to wipe off. So you let it cool, and — yes — you grind it off. Or sand, or whatever. It is a massive PITA to do if you make a mistake.

And joining two pieces usually causes them to be at least somewhat annealed (if not to be positively tin foil-like), so heating them three times (bond, separate, bond again) can cause the parts to melt away or deform.

[jtm]

I feel certain that Wade has seen these before (likely, on Ev Gilmore's 186, if not on several other 55 to 60 year old Miraphone tubas), but - just in case anyone else has never seen these (and might like to see one),

here's a picture of a Miraphone 1960's-vintage brace which features a brass post with nickel-brass flanges:



...

The posts on my '65 186 look a lot like that. The whole tuba looks pretty intricate, actually.

[the elephant]

The look is a constant on this horn (despite them having deleted this particular brace from the horn years ago). I love the figurations and view them (from this era) as "just right" — I like some of the over-the-top engraving and such, but think of the classic 186 stuff as being the standard.

However, I think he was specifically speaking to the brass-post-with-nickel-silver-feet aspect, here. I was whining about not having adequate nickel silver rod to make my braces after having taken the time to make decent-looking nickel silver brace feet from scratch. Joe kindly told me that Miraphone used to do that, so it is not really "inauthentic".

Did you sell your 186 yet? That was the one with the recording bell, yes? Do you have any closeups of the ferrules or braces? It is always nice to see details like this on the horns of others.