186 out of scrounged attic parts - to sell to a school...

[bloke]

We cut the salvaged black vinyl gauze-backed tolex off of the old Yamaha trashed trombone case, and attached it to all the ugly places on the tuba case with pro-grade carpenter's glue and held it in place to dry with it 2"-wide blue masking tape. In the morning, I'll remove the masking tape put one more half moon-shaped piece of salvaged tolex on the bell end of the case (with contact cement), add quite a few 90-degree edge brackets, stick the tuba in the case, drop a new mouthpiece in the case's mouthpiece box, deliver it, and hopefully pick up a check.

[bloke]

The better of the two school-owned "dumpster" cases has been made back into a case (for how long, I have no idea...??).

The greenish-black Yamaha-trombone-case vinyl-like Tolex obviously does not match, but (again) the USPS refuses to mail me the matching Tolex that I bought.

If I paint the Yamaha Tolex, I'm afraid that it would change chemically, stretch (etc.) and un-adhere to the case.

I used peel rivets, a few of them made it past the upholstery (even though I avoided drilling through), and I covered those sharp "teeth" with blobs of hot glue.

mostly new hardware, some hardware repairs (including a wheel), carpenters glue, Bondo, filing, salvaging Tolex, more carpenters glue, epic additional edge brackets, a few more minor glue-downs, touch-up with satin-black paint...

I really believe the Tolex is better than that black-duct-tape B.S...yes?

enough, and (perhaps) never again.
I'm going to tell them that that this is their "last chance" with this case.

...I could have stripped off ALL of the Tolex, sanded ALL the glue off the Masonite, pulled ALL the hardware, FIBERGLASSED the ENTIRE case, painted it with black polyurethane, installed all new hardware (heavier duty, due to the added weight), charged them $1200 dollars, and the case would have weighted an additional 20 pounds...I've ACTUALLY seen one of these cases to which all of that was done.





The window sash handle is their thing...I just left it...

[bloke]

end of thread device...





' time to take this to the school, and swap it for money.

[MiBrassFS]

Tuba looks good, Joe. What I’m really interested in is the case rehab. I have a case from 1959 here that I want freshen up in a similar manner.

[bloke]

Tuba looks good, Joe. What I’m really interested in is the case rehab. I have a case from 1959 here that I want freshen up in a similar manner.

It's really hard to make tolex stick to tolex, even if it's clean. It's always got kind of a sheen to it and some sort of clear coating, even if it's the cheapest. It makes me wonder if I should put some sort of primer over the original layer of tolex that's stuck down really well to the wood underneath before trying to glue to it. There's a guy that made a video- probably a YouTube video - that talked about three different glues that he has used to glue tolex to amplifiers after restoring them, and the pluses and minuses of each type of glue, so it's obvious that I'm not the only person who has trouble gluing tolex down to things, and he's just trying to glue it down to plain clean wood.
I relied on those edge brackets too help hold down the ends of the patches, or I should say hopefully help hold down the ends of the patches.
Your really old case is going to be much more worth restoring than this one. Once they moved production to Costa Rica, it wasn't too much longer that they quit making them out of luaun - or whatever that thin plywood is called - and started making them out of un-tempered masonite. That's what this one is, and I sort of think it's garbage. I don't know how much longer it's going to hold out. I think I could make it last the rest of my life, but I don't know if school children would allow it to last for a year...

... and again I was forced to pull this tolex off of an old trombone case. It's not the same type and it's not the same color.

If you really did want to strip one of those real plywood cases down to clean bare wood, and fiberglass it, that would be a hell of a case. Again - just as I said in a previous post, I've actually seen one where that was done. It had stickers on it from all over the world, and it weighed twice as much as these cases weigh. I think it probably weighed more than a Walt Johnson case.

[MiBrassFS]

This one would weigh a ton in fiberglass. It’s an original 6/4 Holton case. I’d have to hire roadies! I’m too old to hope for groupies…

[bloke]

This one would weigh a ton in fiberglass. It’s an original 6/4 Holton case. I’d have to hire roadies! I’m too old to hope for groupies…

I sold one of those probably 1960s wooden six quarter Holton cases to @tubaing not for free, but for cheap. He tightened it all up and hit it with something like undercoating. I think he might have bought the aerosol type.

[bloke]

Notice how many Meinl-Weston rotary tuba mouthpipe tubes are TWO-PIECE.

By smoothing out the dents in the larger-bore portion (assuming no-or-very-little red rot) - and cutting off and tossing/replacing (fabricating) the smaller bore part, this is how I repair a large percentage of old Miraphone mouthpipe tubes:

Meinl-Weston: