TubaForum.net

I'm working on an old beat-up/brown Conn 20K sousaphone for a school.

So far, the body's taken apart in halves, most of the dents are removed, and (after slicking it out a bit more) I'll solder the halves back together, clean up my work, and leave the body brown.

The bell was a separate quote - to iron out all of its dents, and then (as the bell is the prominent/more-visible part of a sousaphone) polish and re-lacquer the bell.

...The bad news is that the polishing and re-lacquering of the bell was also approved.

I might (??) have the bell section lacquered by tomorrow.
(put in two hard hours this afternoon
- ironing it out
- buffing off all the tarnish and dead lacquer - inside and out)

man...This (dark brown body / lacquered bell) is gonna look pretty weird.

tonight
- hot bath
- two aspirin
- go back out to the lathe, and straighten two brand-new Conn bass trombone slide tubes - for tomorrow's customer (so I can finish with them before heading out of town).
==================================
Hey...
Mrs. bloke just decided to fix up a Fox bassoon for sale...
She got it sold before she even finished overhauling it.

Friday...
- haircut
- color-buff and lacquer 20K sousaphone bell (ironed out smooth and buffed off the old lacquer, today)
- bathe
- (11 AM) friend/colleague/section-mate arrives...do the 2-rotor-from-1-rotor conversion (previously discussed) from that Jinbao bass trombone bell section to that Miraphone COPY of a Conn bass trombone bell section (he will time it, as there are those here skeptical of the small amount of time that will consume) // replace BOTH inside slide tubes and mouthpipe on his REAL vintage Conn bass trombone (lathe-straightened those tubes - just now - to speed up that job, tomorrow) // do some (??) sort of work on his tenor // shorten some good-playing 1950's German large tenor trombone (raw nickel silver inside slide tubes and a rotor with a string saddle) to A=440 // clean up // eat // pack clothes,toiletries, and instrument // head for my first (6:00 P.M.) rehearsal outah-town with my buddy - lv. blokeplace c. 4:30 P.M. // rehearse 6 - 9 P.M. (cimbasso on everything) // collapse at host's home.

bloke wrote: ↑Tue Feb 07, 2023 10:49 am
...The bad news is that the polishing and re-lacquering of the bell was also approved.

You get the haircut 1st, for a better grip.

I got the haircut done by this blonde lady who is very kind and extremely good at cutting hair. She owns the shop and is a barber - and not a "hair stylist". She and her daughter are the only two who work in there. Her daughter is about 85% as good as she is, which is still darn good, but the lady who owns it is a remarkably fine barber. I tend to get haircuts just before a series of rehearsals and a concert. I mean why should I get my haircut at other times?

When she was recovering from some surgery, I went to this - well - barber shop run by black barber who is the only barber there and virtually all of his patrons are black. He charged me only $10, really gave me a nice haircut, and also trimmed my beard and stuff. I paid him $20. People don't charge enough out here in the country.

She had been charging way too little to cut hair - $15, and Mrs. bloke and I had a stern talk with her and told her that she needed to charge at least $20 and then quickly raise it to at least $25. This time, I was glad to see that she's at least raised her price to $20, because that's still cheap. She doesn't cut corners with the haircuts, and gets out the hot shaving cream and the straight razor to go around my ears and around the back on my neck. That stuff that she should probably charge another $15 to do, but she doesn't.

I had the same barber for about forty years in Memphis, and continued to go to him after I moved away. I stopped going to him when he died, which was probably a good time to stop. Several times he told me that barbers cut hair, and hair stylists fix hair. I'm pretty sure he was also referring to men and women, but this woman is quite a fine barber, and every bit as good as my previous barber - who worked at some highfalutin barber shops (including one where the barbers wore tuxedos to work every day and haircuts cost $20 back in the 1960s and '70s). Something else he told me a few times was that (the years after he had reached 80) all of his friends were dead, because they all smoked and drank. (I'm pretty sure his single vice was women.)

My wonderful new barber lady doesn't take appointments and customers are stacked up every morning when she is first open, and then they stack up again at lunch time. After lunch, she stays busy until about closing time because people get off work at different hours after that. I slipped in at about 10:00 a.m. and didn't have much of a wait.

My colleague arrived at my house about 11:15, and I did some work on his euphonium and then on the bass trombone that's newly posted about in the repair form. After that, we had just enough time to sort of get cleaned up, eat one of Mrs bloke's hamburgers, and then head off to a rehearsal that was about an hour and a half drive away. It was pretty intense from about 6:00 to 9:00 p.m., and another 3-hour rehearsal tomorrow morning at 10:00 a.m..

Tonight, I'm sleeping in this amazing very large third floor of a old mansion that belongs to one of the orchestra's patrons (carved ionic stained wood columns in the sitting room, etc.) This is the lady's of the house hobby room - up here - and there are huge tables and huge cutters and fabric all over the place but all very well organized and it looks very nice up here.

The big band we are working with from Savannah, Georgia loves the cimbasso, how much "burn" it offers, and how well in tune it plays. This new mouthpiece - the prototype thing - can put out some really impressive depth charges / laser beams (yes: both at the same)

Notice the (edited) title...
Parentheses mean things.

yeah...
This was a weird gig...

...and I unsmashed the body, but it has all sorts of King/Jupiter (solid, but not o.e.m., by any means) bracing that someone used for the lower mouthpipe...and the BODY dent removal was "extensive", but FAR from complete, though (as seen) I DID pull/un-smash those upper return #3 slide slide bows.

...so the body (and I AM ABSOLUTELY NOT IN THE MOOD TO DO SO, ANYWAY) is not anywhere close to in good enough shape to deserve new lacquer...and the bell was just smoothed out "good enough", but (though I did NOT scratch it up via dent removal) I removed absolutely no scratches...and the corroded surface of the front of the bell sort-of looks like "orange peel" lacquer, but it's ACTUALLY the brass itself.

I did crap-nuthin' to the valves (N-O-T-H-I-N-G) and they feel 100% better than new 20K pistons on new 20K sousaphones.

...anyway...overall, it's an improvement...and maybe they can get a car body shop to shoot the sousaphone's body with some metal fleck brass paint and a clear coat (??)




...so you can see that I removed NO scratches, and even some deep "background" tarnish is still down in the brass, because I just did not wish to
[1] work my ass off, nor
[2] polish away perfectly good metal.


I have NO idea whether this is below pitch, above pitch, or sorta close to pitch...(??)
I just blew some noise into it, to make sure it works (before emailing the band director asking for money).

I’d rate my female barber, on a scale of 1-40, as a 36.

.

The advantage of really long hair is that I have not had any one else cut it in decades. Part down the middle, all the way down the back, hang half in front on each side, cut the ratty ends off so both sides are the same length, and I'm good for another six months. All it cost me was a decent pair of scissors.

Mary Ann wrote: ↑Tue Feb 21, 2023 2:08 pm The advantage of really long hair is that I have not had any one else cut it in decades. Part down the middle, all the way down the back, hang half in front on each side, cut the ratty ends off so both sides are the same length, and I'm good for another six months. All it cost me was a decent pair of scissors.

That's cool. :) How long is really long?

I've always wondered why long hair (even just moderately long) was something mostly only seen on younger women, and why so many middle-age and older women seem to go for shoulder-length or shorter hair.

I've asked that question to women before with a number of responses like:
* I don't like looking at that much gray hair.
* It's easier -- I've spent a lifetime dealing with long hair, time for a break.
* Most men all lose their hair and society is fine with that, why can't we go shorter too?

^ And as a person who is genetically destined for that last category, and doing what he can to prolong that inevitability -- I personally believe in setting an average family hair length. If it's shorter for me, then can it be longer for her? :)

Mine is as long as I can get it, basically, and I know lots of women who have "genetically thicker hair shafts" who can get it a LOT longer than I can. My was-strawberry-blonde hair has very, very thin hair shafts and breaks just from having a scunchie on it. So if it's hanging down in front on both sides, the very ends are about 10 inches below my chin. I know older women who have a big thick braid down to their waists. Mine never would get that long, and I have a lot less than I did ten years ago. For me, because I am simply not going to spend $$$ going to a beauty parlor and expose myself to those chemicals, it is either the way I have it, or some kind of buzz cut that I could also do myself. Since I put female buzz cuts in the same category as man buns, I keep it long.