frank-cilitator services

[bloke]

so this:
I'm considering offering my services as a "frank-cilitator", for those who like frank-ing (building franken-tubas), but don't have all the skill sets.
> You have something you want to make into something better...but it's all beat-up and worn out.
> You send the valveset (or what you want made into the valveset) off to some "valves" guy...ie. SOMEONE ELSE, who touts "valves prowess".
> Send ME the beat-up bell (and - possibly - the bows). I'll send you a quote (assuming everything is viable). We agree on a price, I knock it out (assuming I'm not loaded down with rush work/gigs/family emergencies), send you the "done" pics. You pay me, I send back your parts. I only polish the parts enough to be able to make sure that I've done a good (best possible) dent removal job on each part.
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I would NOT:
🗵 advise
🗵 design
🗵 build
🗵 cut
🗵 re-taper
🗵 create mouthpipe tubes for you (I seem to be good at this, but I find it to be tedious and nerve-racking.)
🗵 mount outside slide tubes on to rebuilt valvesets (though I'm damn good at this, but also find this work to be - not so much nerve-racking, but - tedious)
🗵 strip plating
This (the bell/bows dent removal) is stuff that I can do mindlessly (calmly/quietly) here at my own place - while listening to idiots (of various political bents) yammer their blather on the radio - and without having to worry about whether it "plays", when I'm done.
If you send me crap, I'll warn you that - in my opinion - it's crap, PRIOR TO you spending any money (beyond r/t shipping and handling).
People keep telling me that I'm damn good at this stuff. It comes pretty easy to me. (It had BETTER, after all these years)...just as (thankfully, still) does "playing the tuba".
I suspect that I might really like doing JUST THIS MUCH (limited to the above) of various people's franken-projects... I'm not sure, but I could give it a shot. (??)
I don't mind advising possible clients on how to pack up (in particular) bells...but (if packed stupidly, when sent to me) I would charge for (going back to "zero", and) re-packing not-stupidly (for return shipping)...and would charge just as much (per hour) as I would charge for frank-cilitating. Finally, if your stuff is screwed up worse than it was before (upon arrival, due to shipping damage) I do not have the time to screw around with your shipper and deal with your "claim". I'll just quote on repairing your stuff AS RECEIVED.
(Clients would be allowed to bring stuff and drop it off in-person, which would be preferred.)
Finally, I would prefer the parts be sent un-soldered and completely/thoroughly solder-wiped. If you can franken, you had better be able to do that...and (well) that part of the job is slightly annoying, and I don't want this service to be annoying to me. I would like to both enjoy doing your work AND enjoy confiscating your funds.
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Your comments (encouragement/chiding/mocking) are welcome.

[Shawn]

A facilitator would help manage the whole project, specifically advise... and that's the #1 thing you list that you would not do.

[bloke]

OK...
Here's a magnificent (Chicago, so well over a century old) Holton 6/4 (22-inch) bell that I slicked out late this afternoon, before dinner.

It was crooked, creased, beat-up, flat-sided, black, etc...

no perspiration, and the only thing that needed washing on me was my hands.
(I've gotten pretty good - and remarkably fast - at doing this stuff, over the last four decades.)





Am I boasting, a little bit?
...maybe.
More than that, am I soliciting frank-cilitator work?
YES.

[greenbean]

Just a few too many "I would NOT"s, for me. I have worked with prima donnas on projects before and it didn't go well...

[matt g]

This is not unlike professionals in other realms like old school automotive restoration.

My old neighbor was a restorer of 1969 GT500 Shelby Mustangs. He was one of the premier of his type, restoring things down to the smallest of details. And this was all done in a single car garage with a small attached workshop in a modest house.

He would send much of the work out that required a lot of labor or space, and had specific people he worked with and trusted. Since a lot of his work is/was concours ready this was a must.

I consider what Joe is offering as top notch “body work”. He doesn’t want to take on the responsibility of performing or suggesting modifications that may or may not work.

Considering the cost to own the tools to do dent work at this scale it seems like a reasonable solution to have a “body guy” for bells and large bows that can do a top notch job.

[bone-a-phone]

Honestly, if I had already done what you say you won't do, I'd figure out a way to do the rest. My local shop will do the soldering and dent removal without worrying about/paying for packing and shipping (and without the attitude).

[Shawn]

Bell looks awesome!

Just call a spade a spade: you're doing some great dent removal. Facilitation, not so much.

[Yorkboy]

This is not unlike professionals in other realms like old school automotive restoration.

My old neighbor was a restorer of 1969 GT500 Shelby Mustangs. He was one of the premier of his type, restoring things down to the smallest of details. And this was all done in a single car garage with a small attached workshop in a modest house.

He would send much of the work out that required a lot of labor or space, and had specific people he worked with and trusted. Since a lot of his work is/was concours ready this was a must.

I consider what Joe is offering as top notch “body work”. He doesn’t want to take on the responsibility of performing or suggesting modifications that may or may not work.

Considering the cost to own the tools to do dent work at this scale it seems like a reasonable solution to have a “body guy” for bells and large bows that can do a top notch job.

Exactly this.

When I used to build Model T engines, I would outsource stuff like babbiting and running in crankshaft main bearings, milling and boreing engine blocks and cylinders, or straightening bottom pans (on that engine the oil pan also serves as a structural component and since the end also functions as a drive line bearing it must be perfectly straight - there's a special, rare jig required to do this).

247529.jpg (106.71 KiB) Viewed 1354 times

That equipment is way too expensive for a shade-tree mechanic, and even if you had it, the skill set required to make a good job is daunting.

[bloke]

The things listed (as would NOT's) are all the things that would (otherwise) define ME being a "project manager/designer/executor".
I'm not interested in BUILDING other people's "projects".
I'm ONLY interested in offering to straighten out the BENT PARTS for THEIR projects.

>> I'm ABSOLUTELY available to REPAIR (ALL aspects of REPAIR) people's instruments - such as they are (ie. EXISTING instruments).

The statements in that post ONLY refer to how I would limit my interaction with people's "projects" - projects where serious amounts of time - in my life (with unknown results) - could be sucked up in the pursuit of others' interests. I'm no "prima donna". SPECIFIC TO OTHERS' "PROJECTS" I'm merely offering to be a DENT-FIXER.

THIS:

I consider what Joe is offering as top notch “body work”. He doesn’t want to take on the responsibility of performing or suggesting modifications that may or may not work.

Considering the cost to own the tools to do dent work at this scale it seems like a reasonable solution to have a “body guy” for bells and large bows that can do a top notch job.

================================================================================

Just a few too many "I would NOT"s, for me. I have worked with prima donnas on projects before and it didn't go well...

I may (??) be wrong, but I suspect that you are not particularly interested in being inundated with designing and fabrication dozens upon dozens of one-off dimensioned instrument bags. Rather, you are probably (??) MUCH more interested in producing dozens-upon-dozens of commonly-demanded sizes of bags, and offering/selling those to a high-demand market.
Dent-removal (related to people's boxes-o-parts, which are their "projects") - I'm hoping - proves to be a high-demand service, and (testing the waters) I'm offering that service, here.
A competitor of yours was asked (a year or two ago) to make a one-off cimbasso bag for me. The tone of their reply was one of semi-ridicule. I wasn't offended by their tone, though, because I immediately understood that I was asking them to spend too much of their time (which they must devote efficiently to generate income to feed their family) on an enterprise (cimbasso bag) which would benefit me somewhat, but would probably impact their own productivity quite negatively - and even were I charged some geometrically-high price for them to produce that bag - as setting aside several other ready customers for one customer (on a job which would not offer any future benefit) was too high of a "price" for THEM to pay.
We all tend to view others' custom/specialized/single-job-applicable work as "stuff which we can simply obtain, simply if we're willing to pay enough" (as if it's hanging on a rack in Walmart), do we not?

FINALLY...
Were I assuming the attitude of a "prima donna" I would be suggesting that it should be ME who should supervise and carry out ALL work and ALL decisions (regarding people undertaking "projects") RATHER THAN (as is the case) merely offering to be their "dents guy".

[Yorkboy]

The whole purpose of "frankentuba-ing" (speaking for myself, anyway - and I assume others, as well?) is the act of being one own's "project manager", in that I don't want someone else determining the direction of my project.

No one would be expected to be able to re-plate and hone one's own pistons, so that is outsourced to others who have those facilities - I see this as being no different.

As I said earlier, outsourcing "nuts and bolts" facets of those projects, beyond one's current capacity, is quite common in other disciplines, and is perfectly normal and widely acceptable.

[York-aholic]

This makes sense to me as well. I have two horns that I've flipped around from 3v top action to 4v front action, a York 15" bell Eb (now a 4+1) and a York Model 33. For both of them I made 4v sets from two King 1240 clusters each. Each cluster took a lot of time and fitting for me, but turned out well. Configuring and reconfiguring all of the slide tubing took oodles of time and trial and error until I was happy with things (4th circuits = ). Both bugles required some thinking at the York to King parts interface, which I was able to do. However, dent work wasn't in my skill set then (only very marginally so now). For that I went to a good local tech. Both horns turned out remarkably well.

I've rebuilt a few car engines, but like @Yorkboy I don't have the skills (maybe he does, nothing intended by that remark) or equipment for the machine work on the block, crank, cam, heads, etc. I subcontract that part out to a machine shop. Now if I asked the machine shop to assemble a Zenko aluminum BBC block with a Ford 460 crank and a cam from a Superbee I think they'd decline (analogy being wanting Bloke to assemble my project of Kanstul 6/4 bell, York 4/4 bugle, Olds O-99 valves and a leadpipe from a left handed french horn). With enough work, they might be able to bolt all the parts together, but there's no telling if it would ever run, bound to cause them a lot of frustration and inevitable problems in the company vs. customer relationship. So I can understand Bloke not wanting to spend a bunch of time on what might turn out to be a marginal horn.

De-denting all of my parts (like the machine shop machining my parts) so that I can assemble/modify them and can only hold myself responsible for the results? That I get.

All of this discussion makes me really want to consider unsoldering the bell from my 1958 USN Martin 6/4 that used to have differing diameters as you moved around the horn (by about 3/4 of an inch) and send it East-ward. Hmmm.

Oh, and yes, I'll take that Holton 22" bell. You have my address...

[pjv]

Funny,

Bloke offers services.
Goes into detail about one of them (dent removal only in relation to Fr-tuba projects)
Packages it in a detailed but also entertaining TF posting

and then gets slack because...of what? He offers a service and has clarified the parameters of that service?

Funny.

The world we knew has changed so radically in the past year or so and people are getting their panties all up in a bunch about a private businessman detailing services rendered.

TubaForumers, please, enjoy the fact that, at the very least, this was fun to read and save your battles for more interesting stuff (CC vs BBb, lacquer vs silver, rotary vs piston...you know)

[dp]

Honestly, if I had already done what you say you won't do, I'd figure out a way to do the rest. My local shop will do the soldering and dent removal without worrying about/paying for packing and shipping (and without the attitude).

Honestly, this from a trombone player who was bragging on sanding the slides on their Mack tuba?

Too bad Oktoberfest was cancelled this year, pretending just aint the same as the real thing

[bloke]

Thanks for the discussion.
————————
Again, on any already-put-together Instrument, I am available to REPAIR ~any~ aspect of that instrument…but if I spend the dozens-running-into-hundreds of hours to *put together an instrument, it’s going to be one for myself only. The remuneration involved in paying me to do all that stuff would run into an absurd amount, anyway.
Finally, the last person I would want to engage me to do some work (as there is lots of work out there to do) would be someone who would be “triggered“ by no more than “me clearly listing parameters” within a postIng such as this.
I am soliciting $200 - $600 (??) jobs, here...and not $15,000 -$25,000 jobs....and - if someone designs themselves into a corner - for that person (or someone other than me) to spend the hours and days solving those problems, while I am listening to the radio and smoothing out bells and bows.
—————————
*and I am absolutely not willing to just “stick together“ an instrument. I believe people, here, know what my standards are...and we’ve all seen pictures of unartfully stuck together instruments as well.

[Worth]

Most everything I read here has some value to learn from Frankentubas to rebuilding car engines. I get the idea that even a well thought-out fr-tuba project can be a WAG as to outcome. It's like the search for the holy grail of individually, coolness, conservation/cannibalization, and hopefully function. Each one a learning experience. I am sure that, for instance, each of Sam Gnagey's subsequent horns was tweaked in some fashion. Always something to improve upon. Unless among friends, a true frank-cilitator (active advisor) for the general public in this day and age would need CYA disclaimers and release forms in the event of a stuffy outcome, or one that required further tweaks/mods.
Additional time is money and a headache

[bloke]

I get the idea that even a well thought-out fr-tuba project can be a WAG as to outcome.

Even were it I was willing to accept $XX,XXX to take on someone’s (possibly silently judged by me to be) I’ll-advised start-to-finish project (while turning away dozens upon dozens of other 1-hour or 1-day customers), another problem would be that my name would then be strongly attached to that project, and such projects need to bear the names of those who conceive of them, with them receiving the “credit“.

[Doc]

Too bad Oktoberfest was cancelled this year, pretending just aint the same as the real thing

This is not the sausage fest I was hoping for...

[Three Valves]

The Old "Stuttgart Suprise!!"

[York-aholic]

*and I am absolutely not willing to just “stick together“ an instrument. I believe people, here, know what my standards are...and we’ve all seen pictures of unartfully stuck together instruments as well.

Sorry, I hope it didn't come across that I thought you would just stick together a bunch of disparate parts.

A good point you made was not wanting to get bogged down in lengthy projects that take up lots space and likely get in the way of other shorter term repairs.

[bloke]

*and I am absolutely not willing to just “stick together“ an instrument. I believe people, here, know what my standards are...and we’ve all seen pictures of unartfully stuck together instruments as well.

Sorry, I hope it didn't come across that I thought you would just stick together a bunch of disparate parts.

A good point you made was not wanting to get bogged down in lengthy projects that take up lots space and likely get in the way of other shorter term repairs.

wasn't responding to your post...just some stuff that occurred to me to post.
I still feel as though I owe you, York-aholic, for your generosity towards me...I don't forget stuff like that...