I seriously doubt that it's the spring rate. That's the rate of change of
stress with respect to strain. Stress being how hard it is pushing, and strain
being how far it's bent, roughly speaking. Back of envelope calculations:
Consider that you compress the spring about 180 to 270 degrees when you
From a strictly engineering perspective there should be no difference,
especially considering the number of coils involved. I've had the difference
pointed out to me, and I can feel it myself when I compare valves with newly rebuilt
bearings. I mainly do this because I like to finish with the
This is a problem with Holton 281 valves. You may need to have a repair
person lap the valves. I have found that these valves are much less likely
to stick after sitting unused for awhile if you use Blue Juice or Hetman #1
lubricant. Under no circumstances should you use Al Cass on these
One of the factors causing slow valves is the spring rate of the valve
springs. Most modern springs are made of stainless steel to eliminate corrosion. I
wind my own springs using .039 inch music wire found at most hobby shops.
Since they can charge the ridiculous price of fifteen cents a
Don't new horns come from the factory with heavier weight lubricants? If
the problem is stickiness or sluggishness, perhaps this is the problem.
___
post: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
set your options at
Could you give us a basic step by step of how to wind your own
springs using the wire you mentioned?
Thanks,
Rory
Original Message
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: [Hornlist] Oil troubles
Date: Wed, 3 Sep 2003 12:54:20 EDT
One of the factors causing slow
Spring winding is quite easy, once you get the hang of it. By the time
you've finished your first set, you'll probably be making them perfectly, and want
to redo your first ones.
For French horn, I find .039 music wire by K-S engineering works as well as
any. It's available in three foot
Subject: [Hornlist] Oil troubles
Hello. I am having a problem with the valves of my new Holton 281. They
are
stiff when I get the horn out of the case to play the valves are stiff and
slow. I oil them, and go on playing my normal practice for about an hour
or
so and when i finish I empty water
Sometimes rotary valves can get gummed up by slide grease that gets into
the rotor assembly during oiling. If that happens, you can use Varsol to
wash the grease residue out of the valves, without taking anything apart
other than pulling out the slides. That will get the valves moving freely
I switched to FatCat a few months ago - it revived my valves immediately,
but it took a while before leveling off at long-time reliable. But these
are old unclean valves, unlike yours.
It is possible that the slowness of your valves is not because of the
valves. Maybe it is the lever screw -
In a message dated 9/2/2003 7:44:00 PM Eastern Standard Time,
[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
I am having a problem with the valves of my new Holton 281. They are
stiff when I get the horn out of the case to play the valves are stiff and
slow. I oil them, and go on playing my normal practice for
Have to pretty much echo this - Holtons were known
for tight valves 40-some years ago. The factory
was proud of how tight. They were also typically
slow. Nothing new; it's often true of their best
horns, and the fix is to have a GOOD repairman
work on them. Sometimes you can get that from the
You might want to try loading it up with al cass or even a good chemical
clean. I once owned a 176 merker that was a terrible horn and came new from the
factory with some not so lightning fast valves- the second valve seized up
after about a good month of regular playing. I sent it to my
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