Finally back! Willson 3200RZ Thoughts, Tuba hand guards, and more!

[Sousaswag]

Okay, it's home!

If you haven't been following my long repair thread over in the repairs forum, here's the update.

If you remember, my 3200RZ that I purchased last March (2023) was run over by the previous owner, and somewhat repaired. It still needed a good amount of work to get right again, hence the point of this post. Out of round tubing, leaking solder joints, bent rotors, oh my! Additionally, you will see some before/after pics here as well.

To reiterate: This tuba had the vast majority of dents removed, pretty much every solder joint re-done with care, bent tubing straightened to the best it can be, out-of-round tubing made mostly round again, and some slides aligned much better.

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HERE is an image of the tuba's rotors as I received them, taken by Keith Polito in his shop. You can really see how F'd these were.

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HERE is how they sit now. Much better! Check out Keith's Facebook page for more photos.

You can also take a look at my thread in the repairs section for a more complete story. As I play this tuba now, I detect no air leaks, notes are centering much easier, and intonation is much better, again now that there are no leaks. This is every bit as good as it's competitors from MW/B&S, HB, Gronitz, etc. However, being a Willson, it still needs some quality of life modifications as well.

If you've ever played a rotax valved instrument, you'll instantly notice how clunky and heavy the valves are. It makes fast playing or long gigs/practicing a chore, just due to the extra weight. That coupled with the annoyingly complex linkage system will really make your hand sad. I will be sending these valves out to finally get "un-rotaxed" in a month. During that time, I will be having the linkage replaced with the much easier to work with miniball system, the same thing that's on MW/B&S tubas. It also needs the thumb ring replaced, which may be a while as Willson's got a backlog of parts orders. Once that's all done, I will be very happy.

THE GUARD, VERSION 1.0:

The previous owner must've had really acidic sweat, as he ate through the silver plating on the bell, and near the 5th valve paddle. I know some feel guards are unnecessary, or even dangerous if you sweat a bunch, but having something covering that big bare brass patch on the bell has to be better than nothing. Plus, I plan to be very careful with that guard, and will remove it once a week or so to wipe down that spot to ensure it doesn't get any worse.

I went out to the craft store and bought a square of leather (probably about the size of a piece of paper), some suede binding string, a hot glue gun, and some fabric.

To make this version, you will also need a leather punch, which I already have.

Measure out about 8 or 9 holes, about a half inch in from the edge, if your leather isn't wide enough to meet around the bell (mine wasn't).

Mark, and then use that leather punch to, well, punch those holes into your leather.

Cut your piece of fabric to the correct size of your leather. Make sure you can either punch holes in that to match what you did with the leather, or, cut it so it doesn't interfere with your punched holes.

Hot glue that to the back side of your leather. That should help keep dirt/sweat off of your bell. I'm not sure how effective this will be, but I don't eat through silver or lacquer. YMMV. Regardless, a weekly cleaning should help mitigate any potential worsening of your finish wear.

Cut your suede binding stuff to the length you'll need (I just eyeballed it), lace it up like a shoe, tie off the ends, and stick the excess behind your guard.

Were I to do this again, and I probably will, I'd buy enough leather that I could wrap it around the bell to meet at each end, and velcro it. But, as it sits now, it works, and looks pretty good. Not too bad for a first timer!

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Close-Up view of the guard.

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Fabric backing. Hot glue that sucker down!

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Rear view. This was taken before I added the fabric backing, as a test fit. It works.

[LeMark]

I used to do the hole punch thing when making hand guards, but after making 9 or 10 of them I'm firmly in the camp of just overlapping the leather by a couple inches and using wide strips of adhesive Velcro to hold them together

[pompatus]

@Sousaswag Very nice work! On the instrument AND the leather guard. I’ve always been curious about making effective leather instrument guards.

Best of luck, with the renewed tuba!

[bloke]

I wouldn't put any of that type of stuff on my instruments. I honestly recommend just washing your hands and washing your arms before and after playing and mostly try to play it with long sleeve shirts. I'm trying to give you my best advice based on a whole lot of experience.