not sending this valveset off to Miraphone after all

[bloke]

To review, this is a tuba that my high school friend/mentor/tuba prodigy Jesse Allen, bought when (after they parked him for a year or so at a base band) he was strongly encouraged to audition for a vacancy in President's Own, and - surely, per their plan all along - was chosen/accepted. (He's the same Conn 36K fiberglass sousaphone star about whom I often speak, and - well - get into "disagreements" with others about how much the taxpayers should furnish - instrument-wise and instruction-wise - for school children, as my friend - not until being accepted into the Army as a musician - had never had any private instruction in his entire life.)

Anyway...(to review) after leaving the President's Own after only one stint - as he was never particularly fond of D.C. (nor those who dwell within, but HAD avoided Vietnam - which was his above-all goal) - he asked me to sell this tuba in order to help gather up a down-payment on a house (on the outskirts of Nashville) where he had always wanted to live.

I sold it to a private school in Memphis - actually, the one which is the subject of this movie:
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0878804/

A few years ago (not even realizing that I had sold it to the school in the first place), the band director offered to give it to me (hopelessly trashed bell, some mostly-ruined rotor bodies, epic-but-repairable dents on the outer bows, etc.) I insisted on doing roughly three hundred bucks (pre-2021 hyperinflation) of repair work on some of their instruments in exchange.

...so I put this thing where I could see it in the DOWNstairs of my barn (I had already cut off the lower portion of the trashed bell - in order to convert a later-vintage (lead-soldered) King recording bell to an upright one. For quite some time, I've been saving an old/new (vintage 16-1/2") 186 bell for "whatever", and I recently decided (if I could bring this valveset back to life) that the bell would be "spent" on this instrument...(and I'm not keeping this tuba; I fully intend on selling it: I don't need to keep a tuba-sized "monument" to my friend's memory as a dust-collector).

The valve STEMS (bent/broken/brazed back on/apparently sanded-and-buffed-on) were one set of issues and obvious buffing on the air-seal surfaces of the rotors was another. (It seems as though some "techs" had really "worked over" these rotors reeeeally good.)

OK...
The SECOND rotor body was basically fine, but the others...well...

I was getting ready to send it to Miraphone (to save the non-leaky #1 rotor body via stem replacement only, and to have new complete #3 and #4 rotors fit to those (not ruined) casings...

...but then I remembered that - years ago - @Schlepporello had sold me a couple of old funky 186 "mostly" complete (with issues as well) valvesets. OK...
ONE of the valvesets was no use for parts harvesting, as the rotor profiles' tapers (off an obviously SUPER-old 186) were SO VERY different, and the bearing plates were SO old-style that they featured "lips" (as with other makes of French horn and tuba rotors)...but the OTHER valveset was really similar to THIS valveset, and (as 1-and-2 are the same and 3-and-4 are the same) I had GOOD (OK...they need a LITTLE bit of final fitment) rotors - then for #3 and #4. I ALSO discovered that the @Schlepporello #2 rotor body was pretty close for this (my friend's former) valveset as a #1 rotor, but was about 1/8 inch SHY of fitting into the casing...so today (to make certain that I absolutely WOULD NOT need to send this valveset off to Miraphone) I spent the time needed to get that Schleppy #2 rotor into my friend's former tuba's #1 casing.

I'm REALLY happy with the results. (As with making mouthpipes, this is not something I do every day...I'm just about always successful - ok..eventually, but it is somewhat outside of my comfort zone. I might ?? actually turn such a job down, but WILL do this on something that I myself own.) You might remember the complex/close-fit longer (to fix tuning) mouthpipe that I made for someone's old rotary PT-2. That's THE MOST complex set of bends (with the most "just barely enough room" issues) that I had ever done...and - well - I did it for someone else, it was good, and on the third day, I rested...

Anyway, this rotor (and I might loosen the tolerances SLIGHTLY (??) fits in the #1 casing REALLY well (stem/body/back-bearing) and (with no valve - not even new - being absolutely air-tight, and how could they be and work?) very close-fitting...

...oh yeah: and the surface completely resembles that of factory rotor bodies (no cuts/no gouges).

Round-trip shipping to Waldkraiburg would have been expensive, and Miraphone's labor isn't exactly free-of-charge...so (well...) I'm quite pleased. - delighted that I remembered those valvesets that I bought from Wayne, and tickled with the quality of my job of fitting a foreign rotor body (which was FAR FROM "almost" fitting) into a rotor casing.

Here are three videos.

Here are videos:
- one demonstrating that the rotor turns freely
- one demonstrating that there is no vertical play
- one demonstrating that the air-seal is minimal (ie. excellent)


https://imgur.com/4pUXaqA.mp4


https://imgur.com/yBIEjb0.mp4


https://imgur.com/Rh3TAFw.mp4

[bloke]

The only issue I have left with this valve section is that the #3 bearing playe is a little bit tall, and just barely loose as far as it's friction fit in the casing. I'm going to look through a bunch of Miraphone rotor bearings and see if I have one that works with this instrument without having to put this one on the lathe.

I don't believe I'll reveal what tools I used to fit the replacement rotor into the #1 casing. (It's a little bit embarrassing.) Of course, if I hadn't taught myself how to do this with rotors that were hopelessly ruined already, I would have never done it with this one that matters to me.

[bloke]

UPDATE:

I sorted through my bearing plates and (old-style/non-adjustable) back caps...

I now have a valveset that comes really close to new mechanical condition.

I'm sorta eager to fix this tuba up and get it sold...but I have too many other things to do ahead of it.