[Trombone-l] Home Valve Cleaning

[Michael D McLemore]

Hi Doug,

I think the best answer here is to take it to a pro.  I worked at Greenhoe
building valves and horns for 4 years.  In that time I saw most of what
there is to see when it comes to valves becoming "sticky."  There are so
many things that oiling is just a band-aid for.

Barring any mechanical problems, which can be many (most of which come from
the factory), it could just dirty with some corrosion build up.  With that,
a good sonic cleaning and/or chemical bath will fix it right up.  Then there
is the problem with disassembly and reassembly.   There are way too many
things to look out for while doing that than I have time to type.  BUT
someone trained to do this work will know what to look for.  It's a lot more
involved that most realize.

The time and money spent driving to and from will certainly be cheaper than
replacing damaged parts that take 6 months to arrive from a factory that may
or may not be on strike.

All the best,

Mike  

Michael D. McLemore
mmclemore at charter.net
 
 
 
-----Original Message-----
From: trombone-l-bounces at maillists.samford.edu
[mailto:trombone-l-bounces at maillists.samford.edu] On Behalf Of Doug Rowe
Sent: Saturday, October 06, 2007 12:11 PM
To: Trombone-L
Subject: [Trombone-l] Home Valve Cleaning

Hello,

A quick question:

My Conn 88H valve gets a bit sticky on occasion.  Flooding the valve with
oil (I'm using Binak Pro) via the tuning slide and slide receiver helps
sometimes, but also has a tendency toward gumming up the slide if/when the
oil dribbles its way down and mixes with my slide cream.  I avoid similar
issues on my Edwards bass by disassembling, cleaning, and oiling the valves
(thus avoiding have to pour anything into the tuning slide) semi regularly
(four times a year or so).

Disassembling the Thayers is easy.  I'm not as sure about the traditional
rotor, though.  Does anyone else (non trained repair-person) do this at
home?  Is there any website detailing what to pull/pry/push in order to
disassemble a traditional valve?  Or am I taking a really big risk and
SHOULD just leave it to a repair person (I'm not opposed to repair people,
but there is an inconvenience factor since the nearest repair folk are about
40 miles away).

On or off list replies are fine.  If someone knows of a thread in which this
has been covered I'd be happy to have a pointer to that, as I was unable to
find anything in the available archives.

Thanks,
Doug
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