TubaForum.net

By the time I decided to call it quits last night - as far as secondary school repairs remaining in the building, I was down to three euphoniums, four marching baritones, a trombone, and three tubas. Maybe (??), I can call all the secondary school stuff done today, get the band directors organized at all the different schools, get them all loaded up Monday, and get them all out of here.

I'm trying to decide if I deserve one day off to maybe go visit a friend up in Missouri...
Otherwise, I could get out and mow, but I think the remnants of that hurricane are coming through here, so it's going to be too wet, once again.

blasted through all the rest of those (non-sousaphonic) high school instruments before lunch, am eating a leftover July 4th grilled chicken back, will go back out and hit the (same district) four middle school instruments (trombone and three tubas), call it a day (after all, it's Saturday, where many of y'all take a break), and tomorrow I'm going to do some magic on that 10K/32K sousaphone that I'm trading for a good-playing/not-beat-up Elkhart 20K. (Mrs. bloke agreed to chem-clean it, while I'm ironing out, polishing, and re-lacquering the bell. After that, I'll "magnetize" body dents and do a few body bow lacquer area touch-ups. (This trade is with the same high school I just finished, this morning.)...
...This school is about 1:15 one-way (3-hr. r/t with chit-chat) so I'd prefer to drop off the trade sousaphone with their repairs on the SAME TRIP (Mon. or Tues.)

They will like the 10K/32K sousaphone:

- 26-inch bell (apparently special order...??), just like their Kings and Jupiters
- sounds really good
- body (and sound) is closer to the size of their other sousaphones
- It's still heavier than (even) their Jupiters (as Jupiters are not lightweight), but it's lighter than a 20K.

I'm on my last secondary school tuba (last secondary schools instrument - period) tonight. It's one of a pair of garbage rotary tubas that a former band director purchased who didn't know any better. It's just incredibly crummy. I don't think it's Jinbao, I think it's from a factory inferior (at least. back when they were made) to Jinbao. The paddles are lacquered brass, not even an effort to nickel plate them or anything. The mouthpipe is copper. These come in once a year all torn up and I cobble them back together for the next year...both of them. I got the worst of the pair - which is this last one - where everything's working, and I just need to go back and unsmash it to call it done.
We're sort of proud of ourselves for getting all the secondary school instruments - including even the middle school instruments, which were often put off to the end - done around ten days before anyone's band camp begins, and we're already into the university and community college instruments.

One of these high schools schools is trading us a good playable 20K for a sort of special instrument which possibly would have been called a special order "10K", because it has a 26-in bell. It's more of a size match for all of their Jupiters and Kings, so they are interested in trading. Tomorrow, I'm going to spend all day making this 10K thing look decent, so when they get it they'll be pleased with the trade, and I'm really interested in getting it all done tomorrow (so I can only make one trip way over to their school dropping off repairs as well as dropping off this trade sousaphone), which is pretty far away.

I'd like to get all these secondary schools' instruments delivered Monday (several schools) if it can be worked out, and tear into the university stuff Monday afternoon or Tuesday. Mrs bloke and I are talking about a day trip to go visit @cktuba next weekend if it works out - sort of as a reward for making good progress. He's got a family member not feeling well today, so say some prayers for the CK family.

That last crappy rotary tuba was a little bit of a booger. Nothing gave me trouble, but it just had a bunch of things needed to be done to it, and I just didn't feel like getting out there until after lunch on a Sunday.

The trade Conn sousaphone is acid cleaned, I've ironed the bell out and buffed the tarnish and dead lacquer off the bell interior and elbow. I need to buff the outside of the bell, hit the whole thing with some jewelers rouge, and shoot lacquer on it tomorrow. The body just needs to have the dents magneted out, and I'm going to touch up a few areas on the body bows (lacquer). Also tomorrow I'm going to try to line up band directors for Tuesday deliveries instead of Monday, since I ran out of gas on this trade Conn sousaphone slicking out job, and didn't get it completed today.

Even though the nitrocellulose lacquer on this bell - which was relacquered sometime - is pretty much dead, it's surprisingly stubborn, so for the outside I'm going to use some of my precious/rarely-spent lacquer stripper on it, as well as going back over the elbow interior to strip a few spots that were stubborn.

I want this band director to be really pleased with this instrument. They're going to get a slightly lighter weight instrument that's closer to the size of their Kings and Jupiters, and they're going to end up with an instrument with a shiny bell - instead of a brown one, and a sort of shiny body - instead of a brown one. There's something else that I'd like to point out about this 10K/32K: There wasn't a single broken solder joint on it when I received it: Not one, and not a single one had ever been resoldered. Every single solder joint held for about 65 years, even though it has a bunch of pretty good size dents in the outer body branches. The lower mouthpipe was bent over, but all four of the solder joints on those two cast braces held.

The purpose of trading should always be to benefit both parties, and never for one to cheat the other.

This is the 10K/32K trading-for-a-20K sousaphone...

According to the hourly forecast, at midnight the temperature is supposed to drop down to around 77 degrees...so I can probably color-buff this bell without dropping perspiration on it around midnight.
(At least, the dents, creases, cuts, deep tarnish, old lacquer, and corrosion are gone, and it's READY to color-buff.)
The hurricane remnants are already in Memphis (rain) and there's already a light breeze here.
If I have to, I'll add a buttload of drying retarder to the lacquer, lacquer this INSIDE the barn, and pray.






As can be seen, I pulled a couple of the dented upper returns for dent removal, I've magnet-ed out most of the body dents, and I'll be polishing the bad-looking areas (finish) on the large bows - as well as the (as seen in the second picture) new lower mouthpipe.






Important:
When you vibrate your lips into a sousaphone - making a good sound, take the instrument away, and sustain the mouth shape, muscles tension, and air precisely as they were before the sousaphone was taken away, the sound STOPS, and the lips do NOT "buzz".

6:20 P.M...

I went ahead and color-buffed the bell, and got the body ready to spot lacquer (where I buffed "brown ugly" away, and left the ok-looking 1960 factory lacquer).

I had about 1/2 inch of lacquer in the cup (Binks sprayer) left over from I-can't-remember, added another inch and added (no thinner, but) drying retarder ONLY until the lacquer ran off my dent hammer handle for two seconds until dripping (bloke's scientific lacquer-mixin' test).

The bell's color buffing job wasn't the most gorgeous ever, but very good and the surface of the bell was a bit "ruddy" from what oxidation had done to it over time (and I wasn't willing to spend the time and energy to ruin the bell by buffing away half the metal). ...so the "good enough" color buffing job looked just as good as a perfect one - in this case...The reason for "good enough" was so that I wouldn't get hot enough to begin dropping salty sweat on the shiny bell. Luckily, the lacquer went on beautifully (no runs, and almost no dust). It TRIED to blush, but the drying retarder allowed the humidity (trapped under the lacquer during the spraying process) to percolate to the surface and away.

...and yes, I remembered to run masking tape around the tenon.

...so I went ahead and did this because
- I desperately wanted a hot bath, and it's dumb to bathe before planning on buffing again early the next morning.
- The hurricane cloud cover (no rain here yet, though over in Memphis) dropped the temperature down to 85°F., and the humidity is (albeit high - 68%) low enough to "fight" it (again) via drying retarder.

"trade" sousaphone is assembled, tested, and loaded.
note to self:
The 20K BODY is here, but - when I drop off the 10K/32K trade sousaphone - I need to pick up the 20K BELL from the school (which is a 3-hr. r/t from here).

I'm reminded of the M.A.S.H. television show term, :"meatball surgery".

I bend over backwards to have all the right stuff to put back on all these instruments - rather than improvising (which costs $XXXX), but there are things left undone that I would obviously do for myself or for an individual customer who would be interested in bringing their instrument up to the highest level. It's a matter of a combination of time limitations for me and money limitations for them. These schools' young scholars do a ton of damage and they each shell out significant funds to have all of these destroyed instruments cobbled back together as well as possible and as quickly as possible, but it's just not practical for them to shell out epic funds to get everything in absolute perfect perfect perfect shape, and - even if they threw that type of money at me - there's no way that I could get all these instruments done for them in a handful of weeks. If I hired more people, a whole bunch of these instruments would end up more messed up than they were before they came in. People think that all we have to do is "train" someone, but when they think about their own skills, they know that their own skills involve a whole lot more than "training". Consider this nonsense: "Since this orchestra is short on violinists, let's just 'train' up some more."

Maybe I should just use AI.

Back home after adding an additional stop or two, exhausted yet not covered with buffing dirt today and officially having another 20K to add to the collection of 20Ks.

I demonstrated the trade sousaphone for them. What I like to do with band directors is to play some stuff that sounds really quite good, finish with a nice broad resonant double low B-flat, and then show them that I'm chewing gum. Yes, I did that today.
I also wadded up some masking tape that was taping the necks and bits to a couple of repaired sousaphones, threw the wad of tape 75 feet across the band room to a waste can, and hit the rim.. darn it.

I've got two pint size cups of coffee down... I guess that's a quart, and it's about time to put my washed trousers and shirt (that I wore buffing that sousaphone bell) back on (after Mrs bloke soaked them in super cleanser called Purple Power and then washed them), and I'm going to start tearing into university sousaphones today.

Like I said earlier, Mrs bloke does the most annoying woodwinds first (which are the tiniest), and I do the most annoying brass first (which are the largest).

If I'm pleased with my progress this week on this very (very) large group of instruments, I think I might reward myself and Mrs bloke by doing a day trip on Sunday to go visit with @cktuba a few hours north of here. (We also recently visited him during the total eclipse - which passed just about directly over his house with an amazing view, which determined that the total coverage lasted several minutes. It was just astonishing to see that a total eclipse actually looks like it does in pictures, and that those pictures are not doctored up.

On loan, he temporarily has a piston Fafner there (which was my runner-up model choice of very large B flat tuba), and I think it would be fun to take my instrument up there and compare them back to back. Don't look for any sort of blather regarding that. I view most reviews of instruments' playing characteristics as pretty much meaningless, so I don't believe I should assault and bore the tuba forum (via words such as "teutonic", "core", "dark", "lively", etc. ) with one of those.

LOL...

JUST NOW heading out to work on sousaphones...' spent the last two hours invoicing schools - along with calling some of the schools' bookkeepers and explaining band-director-caused anomalies/discrepancies, prior to submitting invoices...

...sigh...

bloke "I DO LIKE talking with bookkeepers, BECAUSE they CAN keep up with numbers discussed VERBALLY - over the phone. "

I'm now repairing some sousaphones (Dynasty, which featured braces whereby most were sorely underengineered) whereby the angle brace from the body elbow to the third branch is busted. In other words, the flanges are made of thin metal and busted off. I bought two or three sets of those Jupiter ones that simply extend out to fit (not titanic in strength, but seem to hold up okay) but - after having bought them, and them being so damned expensive - I've been repairing the original ones with silver solder and being stingy about giving away the Jupiter ones that I bought.

I'm having to repair a total of 13 sousaphones for this university (plus those two that I sold them...a restored Pan American 14K and a King 1250...remember?).

That makes 15, I believe they have nine or ten more that did not need repairs, and are expecting two dozen players.

I repaired four yesterday, and am planning on repairing four today. One of today's is a Dynasty with the entire valve section OFF the instrument (many braces - as it's 4-valve).

I feel like if I get these four done today (because the Dynasty is so ridiculous), that should be the equivalent-or-more of doing the last four tomorrow.

Once the sousaphones are done, I'll be moving over to the (quite a few) trombones. Those are 607F Kings, and Conn 88H's.

After that (again), I'll be down to the "box instruments" (marching this-es and thats, which are in BOX-y cases)...

Once I'm to the "box" instruments, I always feel like I've got it made...

---------------------------------------

Once this university stuff is delivered, I'm going to circle back, catch some private customer repairs, and then do a community college's concert instruments (c. 29 of them).

If I can catch a (slight) breather (like a couple of "school emergency" repairs a day), I'm going to see about getting this property mowed...

...and "playing season" (for me) will be cranking back up...

--------------------------------

FANTASIES:

- getting stuff that people would like to BUY restored/sold

- getting stuff that I would like to own/play MYSELF built

- finishing (pretty good start, actually...) getting my work room re-organized

- winterizing (storm windows, instead of just screens) one of the screens-only porches

- re-staining the west side of the house

- pulling the exterior framing from around quite a few of the windows, putting adequate backer-rod around these (expensive: Andersen) as should have been done with the original owner had this house built, and reinstalling the exterior (simple green-painted 2x4) framing.

- cleaning up blown-over large trees (around the edges of the woods) from last year's 100 mph wind event

- putting the finishing touches on two barns we built (which we finished to the 97% level and stopped)

Anything is possible…

Sousaphones are done, and there are no sousaphones remaining in the building in need of repair at this time.

PTL

...other than a 22K, whereby an exchange may occur, and I would like the other party to receive as good as they get

Today is Day #1 (of two, three...??) of "trombones day".

I'm thinking there may be roughly twenty (more than that...??) which are a mix of silver 88H's and silver 607F's which are in various states of disarray.

I had to do so much paperwork that I only got two done (and now have to take Mrs. bloke to a suburb of Memphis...NO WAY would I allow her to head there by herself).

These are US made large bore tenor trombones (two years old).

The playing slide on the second one works "sorta ok"...The end-to-end measurement is .015" off (I'm sure NOT from abuse), so - particularly with the silver plating - (as Mrs. bloke would say) "That's what they get".

These trombones are going pretty quickly. It's pretty easy to repair a trombone bell section, tuning slides, rotor assembly, and playing slide, when "the dents need to be removed as long as their renmants can't be seen from a galloping horse", and as long as "the slide moves pretty easily even though it was built about 12/1000ths of an inch out of parallel from end to end", and I'm not expected to delve any more deeply into it.
These are $4,000 silver plated trombones that were purchased for marching. I guess it's none of my business, other than to get them working OK again.

The tsunami of trombones is defeated. It's time to attack the two dozen box instruments. The repair quotes on all of those are mostly two digit, so these should go quickly and perhaps even involve a good bit of chair-sitting.

I might listen to the fist shaking final speeches tonight (if the color commentators will just shut up) but - in the meantime - I think I'm going to wash my face and hands and mess around with the tubas (my own: PLAYING them) a little bit.

I'm sorta poopin' out...I only did eight today, but I DID finish the mello's, so ON TO to the maraschino bariturds.

Most of those are Japanese...quirky, yet predictably quirky...and I tend to be the fastest of all then blowing through those, so I hope to finish tomorrow.