Posted by John Swensen on July 19, 2001 at 13:59:16:
In Reply to: Re: Monsterweights are Here! posted by Cliff on July 19, 2001 at 13:34:31:
I would suspect that the soft hot-melt glue would tend to damp out vibrations more than the Monsterweights, which, like soldering the nuts on, would tend to lower resonance frequencies (hot-melt and heavy nuts is more like holding a hand over the caps while playing, while Monsterweights are more like having a horn made of thicker metal). JB Weld, which is quite a bit harder than hot-melt glue, would have behavior somewhere between soldering the nuts on and gluing with hot-melt, unless you were able to get a near-perfect-fitting joint (with a vanishingly-thin glue line).
The glue, alone, would not do much to the reponse, because it is so light that it would vibrate along with what ever it was attached to. Putting the glue between a heavy vibrating tuba and a somewhat heavy nut (that doesn't want to vibrate) forces the glue to absorb some of the vibrating energy as it tries to move the reluctant nuts back and forth.
Superglue (Hot-Stuff, Zap, CA, etc.) would behave more like soldering or Monsterweights, and can be removed with acetone (perhaps along with some of the lacquer finish).
In my experience, the long-term holding power of hot-melt glue on nonporous surfaces is poor, so I would worry about a heavy nut coming loose some day, banging up the horn.