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So I have this little 182 bugle with leadpipe and MTS included, but lacking the machine.

It has EXCELLENT intonation. Well, the eight or nine pitches I can get out of it with the junk mouthpiece I had at hand were excellent, with the 5th partial “A” being the correct amount flat, which I expect and look for because it is correct and not altered in some way. [I never wring my hands over a flat 5th partial if it nets dead-on major thirds. If it isn’t *that* flat and can only be out of tune with no acceptable use then that bugs me to no end,]

The second space “C” is spot-on for me, and all the Fs are simpatico. If this is the instrument from which @bloke harvested the machine, then the “stinky” intonation was probably in the valves somewhere. This bugle is very good.

I have several possible projects/fates for this tuba on my mind, but I want to hear YOUR ideas. I probably won’t use them, but I *will* consider them.

What would YOU make with this nice-sounding, in-tune bugle?

I think a King 2341 piston set and two Miraphone rotors might be fun — a sort of "Mini Me" to the Kurath if you will.

Shorten it to G, and add a piston and rotor.
Instead of a "contra-", it would simply be a "-".
.

Leave as-is, stick a horn mouthpiece in, and master "natural tuba."

I played a few of those when I worked for brook mays over 20 years ago

No desire to ever play one again. Just too small and bright, nothing "tuba" about it"

Id vote to past a king valveset on it and add a 5th or 6th rotor and have a nice little piston horn! Possibly your own version of the 2182.



Eastman parts are easy to get. I really like how the slides are setup on the EBC632.

This would be a great tuba for certain rep. Berlioz, Brahms, maybe even Bydlo.

The four B's: Berlioz, Brahms, Bydło, and Bayreuthfestspielhausmusik

I can think of a lot of use for this horn. My 621 F was bright and bland. This horn, for me, SINGS. Despite what Mark says about his experience with them, I love the sound. I hated playing my Yamaha. The thing is, everyone else loved it. They don't care about the vagaries of World Class Sound ® tuba tone. They loved how easy it was to tune to. This horn has that same quality, except that I *like* the sound. (I know, it surprised me, too, Mark.)

I like what I have gotten from this derelict hulk over the last five years or so. Once the Kurath is set up I can start looking at this horn. It may not become my next project, but it will definitely be my next next project.

I do not consider this model to have been a very successful rotary F tuba, but the natural bugle is great to my ear. I am willing to spend the time to see how it plays with either a different rotor setup (Miraphone? Voigt? Meinlschmidt?) or with a new piston set from Conn-Selmer. (This tuba has a .698"/17.5mm bore, which is so much more appropriate than slapping on a slow, heavy, and huge "Big Valve piston set as they do with their piston tubas.)

me...(having helped out struggling relatives more than I could really afford to do)

...I'd probably offer it for sale on fb frankentuba, or eBay it, or encourage a bidding war here (after pointing out its glorious salient features).

Already having an F tuba (and a trombonie-F-thingie), I believe I'd rather replenish myself $$$ rather than additionally go in the hole $$$$.

bloke "yet another friggin' F tuba...??"



EDIT:
Someday, we need to do a fatbastard/holtophone show-and-tell.
I played that Holton (standing up/outdoors/in the wind/c. 7 seconds) shortly after you traded for it...but now, it's all cool 'n' stuff.

It was *okay* at that time, with a crappy low register and several other things I hated, but I saw the potential, and eventually, I was able to bring out much of that potential to make a tuba I am very fond of, notwithstanding all the hair I pulled out getting it to where it is. If I did not like it I would sell or trade it. A nice, shiny Chinese knockoff is easily within reach if I want to go that direction, but I most likely won't. (Never say "never" because I have yet to play any of the new wonderphones. I will say that I did not think that the Yamayorks I have played were worth the difference in price between what I have and what $40,000+++ and a very long wait get you. So maybe one of those Chinese BATs is in my future.

Again, I doubt it.

I do not like "cimbassi" enough to ever want one. I might *build* one for fun, but I would most likely sell it once it was finished. (But is anything *I* have ever built truly "finished"?) I *do* however, need a smaller F tuba (like a tenor tuba for some folks) to go with my big F, which is pretty much a quintet instrument. So I do need and want this tuba. Well, maybe not *this* specific one, but an improved 621. (Maybe the Bobo Yamaha?) Anyway, this tuba plays with a really great tone and the pitch is dead on for me. I have to fart around with valves to see what the twisties do to the pitch, so those .656" Olds rotors might get used temporarily to see how decent/disappointing this tuba will be.

Now that the clouds are clearing out with the Kurath levers, I sort of want to put individual rotors where they actually need to go, rather than in a line all next to one another. People do not do this because it would be impossible to actually use the valves. But that is the fun in this for me: I don't really care about the outcome so much as the information I learn along the way. It is not my business, but my much-beloved hobby. Doing straight-up day-to-day repair work — for me — is similar to working in a cubicle. I hate it. It is why I stopped doing it in the first place. A decade of 9-to-5 burned me out for good.

I prefer this work to be my release from the drudgery of playing all the time. So I only do it when I want to. When I get bored I put it aside. Right now, though, I am doing massive work on one of my main horns, so I *have* to do it — and I'm burning out. I am discussing this 182 as a direct result of this in an attempt to relight the fire with the Kurath. I mean, I honestly thought that when I perpetrated this invasion I was certain that it would be over in just three days. I did not expect this to turn into a full-scale war. It was supposed to be a special military tuba-building operation.

I agree with Joe, and hadn't had a chance to share my thoughts before he posted.

Although you would end up with something fun and interesting in the end, you know you, and know very well that it's going to turn into a rabbit hole of ordering parts from. Miraphone and lots of awkward soldering in tight spaces to make it work.

It does seem like you enjoy that to some extent, but at some point, I think you either need to monetize your work when it's completed, or bail and monetize this object before you do a single thing.

Who gives a "F" about the money?

This is something I do FOR FUN.

I LIKE IT.

I refuse to "work for people" because that destroys that aspect for me. I *enjoy* buying parts from Germany or wherever. It is FUN. I spend the money because it is my HOBBY. Some folks play with cars. Some buy books. Some go bowling. I work on horns. I have dropped a ton of $$$$$ on tools and such so that I can do this work myself, whenever I want, in whatever manner I want to try, with zero consideration to what it costs me. It is my hobby.

It is my hobby.

IT.
IS.
MY.
HOBBY.

"Monetizing" it would destroy the very thing I love about it. I have a full-time job that is very much "work" and that, after thirty years, is not all that enjoyable for me. Something fun and interesting in the end is the whole point for me. I bought this bugle because I *want* it.

Thanks for the suggestion, but you are completely misunderstanding what I am doing here.

My wife is unemployed, but I am not going to destroy the only thing I still enjoy just to get by a little better. She will eventually get a job. If I turn this into work I will lose what I TAKE from it forever. Poof. Just like that.

Maybe a Franken-Barlow F? A Franken-Bobo G? Dunno, this is me advising a hot rod addict what kind of rig to build next when I drive a 2000 VW Passat wagon.

Passats are sexy. Not to me, specifically, but to someone…

I like the idea of shortening it to Ab. I have looked at this for years and considered it. G also has been considered, but it would have fewer uses.

Also, this horn is about as short as it can be without butchering the taper. My Holton had a partially ruined taper and it took me a long time to fix that, so I don't want to introduce that specific type of nonsense. I always imagine that after I am dead (probably in just a few years, to be honest) my wife will have to sell all this crap, and then someone is going to sit on *his* stool at *his* workbench and cuss me as much as I have cussed a few guys whose work I have had to undo.

Please don't buy my horns after I die and then spend time cussing me out, guys.

If you like how the bugle plays why mess with it?

I want to keep it in F. I think it would work better (at that size) up a step or so, But cutting it would be a mistake, I think. I like it, so ruining it for the sake of education is not a good idea, I have several either valveless tuba bodies that I do NOT care for that can serve that purpose.

Either way, it makes a lousy Naturtuba without a big box of crooks, so something needs to be done with it.

what about an ultra light super easy 3 valve horn with a kicker for one of the valves (or the main tuning slide)

Lets face it, if you have something you're going to need to play below low Gb, you're going to pick a different tuba anyway

This one has an outstanding low F. If the time to work out the valve section is taken, it should be just fine. I think Mzelton had a good idea and then completely dropped the ball, as they do with a lot of their tubas. Ball dropped. Opportunity missed.

hey...I resent them comments...

Fixing the same toe-up sheeit year-after-year is friggin' fassnatun...

...It's a wondrous thing to see how different types of chillinz bus-up suzas and to watch them musicile excremunts evolve over the decades.

Have you considered buying one of those replica VW "new beetle" bodies and layin' it over a wonderful ol' AMC Gremlin frame/motor/trans/suspension...??

You could end up with the best of both worlds...

HAHAHA!!!