Posted by last words on this on September 18, 2003 at 20:46:41:
In Reply to: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Well, wet my knickers...!!! posted by hey Tony!! on September 18, 2003 at 00:27:00:
The ol' Joe-Holton was originally satin-silver - a 3V front-action 1960 model. Joe had seen this tuba in various pawn shops along "pawn shop row" for years, but it was always redeemed by the owner. Joe finally bought it from one of those pawn shops for $175. Later, Joe met the original owner. Apparently, the original owner had purchased it new in the Chicago area, studied the tuba - apparently a bit with Mr. Arnold Jacobs, and also studied horn. Joe kept the Holton as a 3V BBb for quite a few years, until Joe felt up to the task of trying to cut it down. Joe played it in the pit with a couple of touring Broadway shows. One in particular, "Annie", had a lot of loud low Bb's and low F's...a fantastic sound in the old Orpheum circuit theater.
The original silver plating on that instrument was incredibly thick. It was so thick, that this instrument could honestly be referred to as "silver CLAD". Even after shortening, the addition of the 4th and 5th valves made this instrument weigh approximately thirty pounds. Much of the weight truly was/is the silver. During the re-sandblasting after the CC conversion, some of the heavy silver plating came off in thick sheets of the back of instrument...oh well.
The 5th rotor used was a Mirafone (model 190) .835" bore rotor. That was the first instrument that it occurred to Joe to use rollers (as on a saxophone, bassoon, etc.) for the 5th valve thumb contact, rather than a large metal spatula that typically "grabs" the skin on the thumb and slows down the action. Joe incorporated that on all his subsequent instruments, whether Joe-made or factory-made. So far, apparently no one else thinks its a good enough idea to copy.
Many/most old Holton's seem to have a flat 3rd partial, whether BBb, CC, or cut from BBb to CC. Several people claim that their Holton BAT's do not have a flat third partial.* Perhaps this is true, because Holtons were not manufactured with the consistancy of Conn BAT's - of which 100% have unusably-flat third partials. Perhaps (??) those Holtons with slightly smaller top bows aren't as flat on the third partial. Indeed, Conn BAT's had out-of-proportionally large top bows. It seems to Joe that the BAT's (in general) that "behave" on the third partial have noticably smaller top bows. The Joe-Holton had a very large top bow. The Joe-Holton had a very flat third partial as a BBb tuba. Joe messed around with different combinations of bows (prior to final assembly) and succeeded in getting the third partial up to pitch, but a bunch of other stuff was screwed up, so Joe went back to plan "A", where everything else but the third partial (like a Conn 2XJ) was about "OK".
Joe would never have tackled this if he could have afforded to purchase a really nice factory-made BAT, but at the time Joe was semi-broke and semi-fascinated with the BAT idea. Had Joe bought a BAT back then, he would have sold it later and bought a better BAT, because now there are better BAT's available for purchase than there were at that time.
The CSO York tubas also have a quite flat 3rd partial...this from the horse's mouth.
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*Recently, a friend, a university tuba professor, sent a picture of his recently-acquired (factory) CC Holton BAT. In his email he said, "...and the third partial is actually IN TUNE !!!..." scroll down............scroll down.............scroll down................scroll down.........................................."PSYCHE!"