Holton 345 Redux

[the elephant]

One serious possible problem that I could see being encountered is that "Holtophone" sounds too much like "Hold the phone"...as that expression has become obsolete.

I hope you parked all that stuff in an interior room...Some more "red" and "purple" b.s. is showing up on the map...

We have a huge oak that overhangs the back half of our house. I worry every dang time the weather gets real windy. Tonight will be fine, but from about 8:00 a.m. until 5:00 p.m. we are looking at "strong storms" with the percentage of coverage being in the 90s. I have already moved this project from the bench to an interior room with our horns and the bugle for this tuba.

Fun, fun, fun…

[the elephant]

Did you say the 5th valve will be removable or just the valveset?

The piston valve section will be removable, but the 5th will be removable as a separate unit, replaceable with some .835" straight pipe from my friends in Germany. I intend to run the horn as a four-banger as often as possible. It really plays well like that. It feels very different and the mid-low register responds faster for me. The 5th adds a small bit of resistance, but it is in the area where the horn needs less resistance. I am hoping this new 5th will partially remedy that, but if not, I can just remove it.

Plus, modular tubas are just plain sexy.

[York-aholic]

Nice work and nice planning.

That miraphone “hoop” (two step 5th circuit?): Do you happen to know what it’s bore is?

Thanks.

[the elephant]

It is for the old-style 186, so .769", which is what the horns are today, too. Don't be fooled by the advertising. They have never changed bore size. I read .770" and .772" but I buy the parts from them and they are marked clearly as 19.54 mm bore, which is .769" just as it has been since Moses first played one.



This horn came to me @ 19 mm. I bumped it to 19.54 mm use the much nicer Miraphone tubing. It is only a .5-ish mm jump that you can barely see. So all the crooks, slide tubing, and this "hoop" are uniform in ID.

[LargeTuba]

Where did you get the Collar that makes the 5th removable, I forget what its called.

[the elephant]

I'm sorry, but I don't know what you are describing. Do you mean a locking collar or something along those lines?

The 5th on this horn will be attached using various detachable braces. The valve section with its slide will be installed between the 6th branch and the large side of the main tuning slide. Once installed, it will then rotate longitudinally so that all the brace parts are touching. Then the screws will be installed.

The ends of the 5th valve section are, in effect, outer slide tubes. The replacement "dead pipe" will be a straight piece of tubing of the exact, same length with an internal sleeve where the valve would normally be. This tube will have the same lock points as the valve unit so that this leg can be secured to the tuba in the same manner. If I did not do this part the empty tube would be structurally unstable.

I hope this explains things a little more clearly.

Here is a diagram of the internals of the valve tube and the dead tube…


With the valve installed… The tenon on either side comes into contact with the valve knuckles, internally, with the MTS all the way in there are no internal gaps or steps.


With the dead tube installed… This tube has a press-fit internal sleeve that occupies the internal space normally taken up by the valve so that there are no gaps if the MTS is all the way in.

[Tubajug]

I gotcha. So both the 5th valve and the straight pipe are simply pressed in, not soldered? Very cool.

[the elephant]

They are made from slide tubing, so they are greased and they move freely.

[the elephant]

Here is a quickie video. Sorry for the lousy quality of the narration and camerawork. I had no cameraperson and none of this stuff is soldered together, but I used a very thick grease and it is cold in the shop. These combine to make it impossible to get parts to move. Trust me, once cleaned up and greased with what I normally use they will work very nicely.

I received about a dozen "Huh?" emails and messages, plus a few here and on Facebook. I decided that I had done a lousy job explaining how the 5th valve section is attached to the horn, and I also give a quick tour of the new routing of the inner half of the 4th circuit.

[Yorkboy]

Brilliant yet simple idea to make the 5th valve removable - no need to mess with a threaded union!

[the elephant]

I did something similar for my 601. After I bought my smaller 68, I installed the valve in the leadpipe so I had the option of 2-3-5 instead of 2-4, but this got my where I needed to be for a concert with a bunch of low D and Db's.

https://youtu.be/fNvKh70WUN8

[bloke]

<salient ReMarks from LeMark>

<OFF TOPIC>

Several decades ago - with that 184C, to which I added a 5th rotor - there were (and still are - with whomever owns the "Bishop" instrument, now) TWO 5th slides...

1. a GG whole-tone slide
2. a GG semitone slide

Even though 245 (with slide #2) was barely flat for "low F", it was WAY better than 124 for "low F", and I found that - nearly always - I used the SEMItone (2.) slide, and rarely used the (overwhelmingly popular, today) WHOLE-tone slide.

5-4 were luxurious for the C-sharp/F-sharp tuning, 2-3-4 was (of course) still there for "low E", 2-3-4-5 (GG semitone) was better than the other versions for low E-flat, low D was good when additionally depressing the 1st valve (ie. "all valves down") and the "low C-sharp" was so seldom needed that I almost never found myself pulling out the alternate slide to play it.

I'm going with this same tack (which makes even MORE sense with a B-flat tuba) on my compact Holton B-flat project. I've already stated this...so NOT ONLY am I "off topic", but I'm ALSO being redundant.

<OFF TOPIC>

[the elephant]

I measured out all the parts for the 4th circuit and deducted that from the total needed. I came out 3" long, believe it or not. I was concerned that I would end up with several inches that would have to go somewhere, like in a longer top 4th slide. Happily (unless I screwed the pooch on the math) I have it all set up now with the parts I cut to fill the gaps. I ended up redesigning the outer 4th (the upper and lower slides you usually see on the outer edge of the valve section) to visually line up some things that had been unrelated but now were so close that they looked like a mistake. Again with the aesthetics. However, the extra time spent on this will now make me look clever beyond my paygrade, as though I had planned some of these things from the beginning. Heh, heh, heh…

The photos are of the newly cut parts, mounted to the horn. Everything fits perfectly except that I have not worked out how to join the lower 4th to the hoop from the other side. I will likely use a dogleg. I might use a different crook. It doesn't really matter right now; what does is that I have the correct length for the circuit, everything but one joint is cut, dressed, and fits well, and the layout works well.

I will work out details this weekend and try to assemble it all onto the valve section.

[Tubajug]

That is a mighty fine-looking valve section sir!

I don't remember, did you bend that big hoop in the 4th valve circuit in the back on your own?

[the elephant]

I have bent a bunch of crooks and a few inner branches but am not experienced with it enough to want to try it on this tuba. I talked about it a lot, but I would have made my bending jig match the shape of the 6th branch.

I looked at a hoop that fit the space better. It came from a perfectly healthy Conn 24J that I want to play around with. The tubing is pretty much the same bore, but much thicker, so I would have had to do some shrinking or stretching of something to get the Conn tube to fit the miraphone stuff. Also, after all that work it would have looked bad in amongst all that brand new tubing as it is badly dinged and scarred up. It is so think that making it look like a new part was something I wanted to avoid. Instead, I decided to put it back on the Conn.

The hoop I used is the lower half of a Mirafone 186 two-tone 5th valve. I ordered a part for my 186 and Eva misunderstood me. This was shipped (in nickel silver, so it was close to $50!) by accident. The cost of sending it back and then getting what I wanted was stupid-high, and the part was very nice. I told her I would keep it. She sent me the correct part very quickly. Alles ist gut.

There are things about this that I really dislike, but the part is so difficult to see when installed and it fits close enough that I find the convenience of using it far outstrips the negative aspects.

However, tonight I noticed that the fit is worse than I initially thought, so I may use a nice piece of brass tubing of the same size to make one that fits better, and it would be of brass, like all the other slide runners and crooks.

We shall see. I will try to get this one installed and then see how the section fits on the bugle. if I get it all together I will likely forget I ever disliked this hoop, heh, heh, heh…

[the elephant]

Today is Setup and Alignment Day, with a bit of expanding and trimming to the 6th branch, and some serious cleanup of solder mess from when I had to pull Baby apart last the time.

So far it looks like everything will fit together perfectly AND I can reuse my leadpipe. I had it off the bell before, so inserting the King detachable brace to the bell will not alter anything enough to worry about it. I am not sure how the King receiver brace will work, though. I have a new leadpipe here, unbent, pitch-filled, ready to go. So if things shift around enough that is my go-to plan. If I can save that for an upcoming project I would be much happier since none of this stuff is free, you know…

Just the one photo for now. It is just a teaser. I took like 20 so I could study angles and gaps away from the tuba. It is much easier for me to focus on such details with it reduced to several angles in 2-D and the bulk of the tuba out of the way. I am about to eat some lunch. It is supposed to rain hard starting at 7:00, so I need to have everything packed up and back inside by about 6:30. Let's see what I can get done in that time.

Ciao!

[the elephant]

Okay, so I have the bugle together and more or less cleaned up. I still have to make three braces, install them, and clean up any mess. Then I will be ready to install the valve section.

[the elephant]

I was "not ready for primetime" with my dent machine when I initially rebuilt this bugle.






And under no circumstances am I going to tear this fat fussbudget of a tuba back apart to do so now that I can. It stays the way it looks. Just sayin'…

[bloke]

That rocks.
Other than the distinctive Holton bell/bow shapes, it looks very Conn-ish...yeah: in a very good way.

[prairieboy1]

I was "not ready for primetime" with my dent machine when I initially rebuilt this bugle.






And under no circumstances am I going to tear this fat fussbudget of a tuba back apart to do so now that I can. It stays the way it looks. Just sayin'…

Fussbudget to the power of 10! Time for the valveset and then playtest!
Keep us in the loop!