Posted by Wade on December 15, 2003 at 17:52:07:
In Reply to: Re: Re: Photo Test posted by jlb on December 15, 2003 at 12:17:41:
Minimum Playing Condition repair request for this tuba by a typical poor-a$$ed Mississippi public school band program (meaning that a shiny, new Amati is out of the question for the foreseeable future):
$375 total.
What they got (from ticket):
de-dented bell flare (as possible)
remove accessible dents [that means all dents the can be removed without unsoldering anything]
repaired and hand lapped all valves
pulled 4 stuck slides
replaced inner and outer tuning slide legs, ferules, and crook
removed, straightened, and de-dented entire 1st and 3rd slide assemblies
replaced six broken braces
added five braces to 1st, 3rd upper and 3rd lower slides
realigned all slide assemblies
new felts and corks
no chemical wash [to save money - I kind of did it anyway, as it was too nasty to solder]
no refinishing [no buffing or lacquering was done in order to save money]
Customer advised as to the cost of removing the bottom bow and finishing the de-denting work during Summer Break.
So - this is what it looked like after I did the bell flare and the major dents to the rest of the body. The customer was there and asked me to not do the finer work or refinishing steps. I don't like letting things out of my hands looking like this, but this saved a VERY poor school a bunch of money by making this tuba usable again.
Sometimes you sell one, sometimes you overhaul one, sometimes you do "budget" work. Still, it came out pretty nice. I wish that I could have done the rest of the dent work and the refinishing, but I still made some money.
Wade "in Mississippi, EVERY big repair job is a budget-related haggling contest over price" Rackley