one thing i use is Kaboom in the spray bottle, after cleaning the horn out with simple green, I spray it down inside and out with kaboom, and rinse well. Kaboom will brighten up the brass, the inside of my horn looks brand new. Rinse well and dry with an air hose (if available) Rob
--- On Wed, 11/17/10, Steven Mumford <[email protected]> wrote: From: Steven Mumford <[email protected]> Subject: Re: [Hornlist] Horn cleaning To: [email protected] Date: Wednesday, November 17, 2010, 2:07 PM My best advice as a repairman is to avoid HAVING to have your horn cleaned by the repairman. Luckily, it's not that hard to do. There seem to be two groups of horn players. Those who have a lot of acid in their systems and those who don't , with a bunch in the middle of those two extremes. I got lucky and I seem to have a pretty neutral pH. My control group is a friend who can turn a horn green just by walking through the room. Neither one of us has ever had to have any heroic horn cleaning over the last 40 years or so. We just oil our valves and snake the horn out at reasonable intervals with soap and water, grease the slides. His horn is shiny clean inside, no problem. He melts through the lacquer in no time and burns holes in the horn from the outside, well, that's another matter. Most aggressive shop cleaning supplies either are, or contain some kind of acid. They will eat the green corrosion off, along with a certain amount of the metal. A few treatments of that and your horn will leak everywhere. Honestly, I'd rather have a little corrosion in there (I don't) than have all the slides and valves leaking. This is why people always say "Wow I just bought a new Poopengruppen 5000, and it responds and projects so much better than the Gooberschluck 180 I used to play" Yes it does, your old horn was worn out, maybe by your negligence and by the way it was cleaned at the shop. Obviously the "yearly acid cleaning" is going to take a toll. There are some non-acid cleaners available too, but they tend to leave the horn looking ugly so shops often use some kind of invasive process to make them shiny again. I'm still saving up for the ultrasonic tank so somebody else can comment on that. I tried filling the sink with water and having a soprano friend sing really high at it, but it didn't work. Don't be afraid to put soap in there. There's probably a fair amount of unwholesome bacteria in there so it might make you healthier and your horn will smell April fresh. When it's cold outside, I've got the month of May. You can add oil later. Don't be afraid to squeeze some dish soap right down into the rotors. I've only done it on a few thousand horns so maybe the jury's still out, but so far no problems. I've taken the rotors out after to see what the effect was and there's no residue, no problem. You just have to run plenty of water through there and get ALL the bubbles out. I have a hose on my (fiberglass so I can drop things) laundry sink. Works good. You can use kerosene if you want, but it's no more effective than soap and it makes your horn stink to high heaven. If your valves are slushy and slow, run some soap through there and it will make them faster. It is good to take the rotors out every now and then and run a cleaning cloth down to the bottom of the casings. There's always some dirt down there you can't get any other way. Some people I see 2 or 3 times a year. Their valves are sticking, their slides are stuck, etc. etc. Some people never need that kind of work, even my acidic (although not Hassidic) friend. Just keep your horn clean and oiled. No problem. What was the other question? - Steve Mumford _______________________________________________ post: [email protected] unsubscribe or set options at https://pegasus.memphis.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/options/horn/rob_schmidtke%40yahoo.com _______________________________________________ post: [email protected] unsubscribe or set options at https://pegasus.memphis.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/options/horn/archive%40jab.org
