TubaForum.net

I was there too! We shoulda had "TubaForum" shirts or some such.

They looked massive. I always thought if/when I needed one, I'd rather go with Josef Böhm's type. Adjustable, lighter.

For 45 years, I've used a huge diameter/taper wooden so-called chair leg wrapped with now badly decaying foam rubber from some old mattress, and then wrapped it around with some old blanket. The rest of the tuba is supported by running a copper insulated wire - such as is found in the walls of houses - from a place on the instrument up to a place on the ceiling. I have different places on the ceiling to attach the wire, based on how I've rotated the instrument on that rig described above.

Every time I've examined any sort of holding device for a really large instrument it occurs to me that if I torque on the instrument a little bit too hard, that holding device could make some interesting changes in the instrument, changes which probably aren't desirable. I like my crappy setup, because that can happen with it.

Admittedly, most of the dent removal, valve repair, and soldering that I do with tubas is done in my lap while I'm sitting down - and feel free to shame me, but I seem to get pretty good results. (I've always been results-oriented rather than methods-oriented, and this applies to a whole bunch of the things that I do in all sorts of aspects of my life and various disciplines - and maybe this isn't good? Likely, it has a lot to do with the fact that I've never had a boss.) The rig described above is only when I end up being cornered into refinishing an instrument, and that's only what I'm selling an instrument. I will use it for the 186 made of attic parts in one of my most recent repair threads, but I think I've conned Mrs bloke into doing all the ragging on the inner surfaces, whereby I'm just going to do the buffing machine stuff, the cleaning, and the shooting of the lacquer.

Thanks for the report. I imagine those things are not cheap. If I was young and really excited about refinishing tubas, I might look into something like that. I've only ever been one of those two things.