It still has it's original lacquer, which seems to be nitrocellulose.
I just smoothed it up, cleaned it out, executed a linkage conversion (to LARGE Minibal), straightened some bent paddles - as well as a slightly smushed carriage bar, straightened a spiralled carriage bar screw (the long one), and granted a couple of other special requests. (This is the tuba that had its water key removed.)
I don't like pulling off Miraphone S-arm linkage (because it's really handsome, as well as easily reconditioned), but this one had already suffered an S-arm-ectomy and some plastic stuff had already been installed on it.
(The owner had done it themselves, and were dissatisfied with it.)
Since they had already (well...sort of) tapped stuff out to 3mm, (even though the "B&S/M-W" size links aren't supposed to fit Miraphone) I decided to make the larger links fit anyway...because it saved me time and saved the owner of the tuba a good bit of money (with - otherwise - me either tossing a bunch of parts in the trash and ordering new from Miraphone OR filling up a whole bunch of 3mm tapped holes with brazing material, and RE-drilling and RE-threading them with 2.5mm threads (bleah!
) . I also went ahead and reused some of his hobby shop screws and risers, since they were perfectly good, and also well-made. The control springs - on the lever-end links - are called "wave springs". They save me the trouble of having to braze on cylindrical chunks of brass - which would accommodate "ball point pen"-style springs - springs which (imo) consume way too much real estate.
...same-direction rotation...?? pure humbug (and also not requested).
