Pittsburgh CL: crazy Frankentuba 5v CC $1,800

[arpthark]

https://pittsburgh.craigslist.org/msg/d ... 16125.html

My head is spinning trying to figure out the valve section/wrap.

Cool tuba though! I talked to this seller before it was on Craigslist and he said that the intonation is a little difficult to work around.

[hrender]

What it lacks in grace it makes up for in complexity. Holy cats.

[arpthark]

I took another look and it's really just a little crazy looking because the 4th valve wrap is in front of the tuba (and has a lot of weird angles) instead of tucked behind it. I like the big nickel silver ferrule for the arm contact spot on the fourth valve tubing.

'Tis neat. If it were on the other side of Pennsylvania I'd be tempted to drive down and check it out.

[the elephant]

MW 30 or 32 bugle. The pistons *could* be Nirschl-made for a B&M, but the buttons are not correct, so who knows? The rotor is a Willson. The 5th is a flat M3 (23) at least. (Definitely NOT flat M2!)

There are some funky, home-bend crooks and several short nickel silver tubes that have been spliced together to make longer tubes. This guy used up lots of old tube stubs, which makes me smile. I incorporate as many tubes from my offcut boxes as I can to preserve longer runs of tubing for other projects. However, it looks as though he needed a few inches of straight nickel silver tube in a few spots, and spliced together two shorter pieces. Not terrible, but when I am faced with this, I use an internal spacer or ferrule to ensure the inside of the tube run has no internal steps. With what I see in these photos I wonder whether all these slide circuits have lots of internal steps or gaps. If they are internally sleeved to make them more or less smooth inside the external third layer of tubing would not be needed.

What I am saying is that this horn *looks* to have been built inside-out, so to speak, and that could account for some of the intonation issues. The bugle is complete from the bell to the pretzel branch to the MTS. The MW 32 has very decent intonation (usually) so the pitch errors are likely in the leadpipe (probably not) or in each valve circuit due to sloppy or poorly planned work. It would be fun to tear this apart and put it back together again. But, it is just as likely that the *shapes* of these two slide circuits are to blame; no amount of careful rebuilding can fix that. The 1st and 2nd circuits are pretty much stock. I think that 3rd was redesigned to fit onto this bugle — the bottom half looks weird. Then you have 4th and 5th, which are rather <ahem> original-looking. The real area that I would look at redesigning is the air path through the Rotax and around to the MTS, which just looks bad, to me. The leadpipe looks like it would be okay, but it has to have been very well bent and very round, and I am betting it is very ovalized in spots.

If someone buys this and lives within 500 miles of Jackson, MS, please HMU for a playtest. I would make a long drive to give this tuba a try. I like Frankentubas based on the MW 30/32 bugle. I have owned three, and all were nice sounding, nicely playing tubas that fall somewhere between a 198 and a 188 in sonic "weight" and they can be pushed very hard before breaking up. They have some pitch inconsistencies, and all of mine had weirdness in the 23 overtone series, but they are good tubas that do not get enough attention from this community.

[If one of us buys it and does NOT want the fat, sweaty elephant to visit I would not be offended in the slightest; I am not trying to invite myself over for tuba time and free coffee, heh, heh, heh… Good luck to the eventual buyer in sorting out the intonation issues, whatever they might be. I have had some tubas with horrible intonation that were easy to lay very well in tune, and I have had a few that had okay intonation, but it could not be easily corrected. Intonation issues are not a deal-breaker; uncorrectable intonation issues are, though. If the four open Cs are out of whack give this one a pass. If they are good then more investigation with a tuner would be merited.]

[Tubajug]

Just reading Wade's description before clicking the link, I was expecting something completely cobbled together (messy solder, burnt lacquer, etc). It looks like the work is fairly clean, crazy circuitry aside. It certainly looks like it was a lot of work! Someone put a lot of time into that.

There's something Jupiter-ish about it to me...

[bloke]

enjoyed looking at the picture...thnx for linking.

I didn't read Wade's post slowly enough (skimmed through it, admittedly) to be absolutely certain about his sentiment, but (thinking I picked up correctly on it), one of my least favorite things (though I try to not refuse folk) is "working on frankentubas". They're probably pretty close - as far as ranking - to "straightening out totally smashed YBB 641's and 321's".

frankentubas and me: 2D viewing is best.

[bort2.0]

My opinion:

Piston valves on a rotary tuba body.

No thanks, move on, nothing to see here ...