I seem to be posting a lot today, but I just needed to share another story. So first of all there are three general categories of instruments: woodwinds, brass, and strings. With this being said most readers would know that I recently fixed a clarinet. and now I have checked off one more category. Let me rewind. At 10:30 this morning we had a sectionals for the beginner band. I lead the trombone, tuba, and baritone sectional, along with a Haitian man who speaks very little english, so this has forced me to learn Creole fast. About 20 minutes in the tuba player raises his hand and fires off some very fast Creole at my teaching partner. We both go over and my coworker asks him what is wrong and the student shows him that the third valve on his tuba is not working. The first response is to open the valve and add some oil. Doesn't put a dent in the issue. So the next conclusion is that there is something wrong, physically with the valve or the casing. Leonard, the instructor, tries to pull the valve out all the way and it gets hopelessly stuck about halfway out. After much grunting, and plenty of sweating in the hot morning sun we get the valve out and start looking the instrument over. It was at this point that the student points to a slight line in the side of the valve (see picture). Hoping for the best, but knowing the worst, and rub my finger along the inside of the valve casing and can feel a slight bump. The cylinders that valves on a brass instrument move in are machined so there is a minuscule space between the case and the valve itself, the slightest dent can cause massive problems. The normal solution to this problem is to rebore the casing, as in put a specially designed drill/grinding wheel thing through it that is precise enough to allow the piston to move again. We obviously did not have one of these in our checked baggage, so we had to do what Haiti does best: improvise. I talked with Liz and Kara, the trumpet player/brass expert here, and asked them what they thought we should do, the concert is in two days by the way, and there are no instrument repair services that anyone knows of in the country. Kara had a small tool kit with a screwdriver, bits, allen wrenches, a razor, a set of computer screwdrivers, needle nose pliers, and a mouthpiece bore reshaper (see picture). Essentially nothing that would normally be used to rebore a valve. After staring at the kit for a while I inserted the largest allen wrench into the screwdriver and inserted it into the valve, after taking out all the innards, such that the end of the short side was on the bump and the long arm came out the top of the valve. I then applied pressure to the screwdriver handle and the lever I had made did the trick. The tuba now not only works, but it has very good action (the term for the movement of valves).
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