In a message dated 3/8/04 1:00:26 PM Eastern Standard Time, Hans Pizka writes:
> Wash the horn through as I told you. Do it carefully. You will see
> nothing coming out. Often the "factory dust" is the dirt accumulated by
> the many careless people who tried the horn for weeks but returned the
> horn, and on and on. The shop keeper never cleaned the horn out after
> use nor did the trying person. This is not dirt but ugly left overs from
> "fellow players".
>
> Clean it out & use a micro fibre towel to whip away the water drops.
> Micro fibre towel is available in super markets.
>
> Don't get hysterical about stupid old stories which might be true, but
> only for every hundredth horn or less.
>
I guess I won't waste my typing fingers trying to convince Hans, he's too
stubborn to ever admit anything he doesn't know might still be true, but for
those who might care about their horns, I'm not making this up. Sorry Hans,
I'm up to my elbows in the innards of these horns every day and I haven't
hallucinated much since the 70s. It's not true of all brands and I'd hate to
mention names but their initials are H, C and sometimes Y.
It's not dirt from people who have tried the horn before. I've seen it
in horns that have never been played exept by the factory tester. And there's
often a LOT of it. I figure it's probably mostly buffing compound which is
not easy to completely clean out and especially the US factories are not doing
it very successfully.
Sorry again, regular cleaning that you can do without disassembling the
valves isn't going to get it. That's why nothing comes out. Take a rotor out
and run a cloth down to the bottom of the casing. It will come out with all
kinds of black stuff on it. Wipe an inner tuning slide tube off with a clean
cloth, more black stuff. It's not soluble in water. It's not very soluble
with soap. Your cleaning snake can't reach it, but valve oil will melt it free
and it makes a nice grinding compound for your valves.
OK, I don't have the spare time to argue it anymore so if you believe it,
fine. If you don't, hey, it's not MY horn.
- Steve Mumford
PS Acid breath = people who corrode a horn completely green just by walking
into the same room with it!
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