[Trombone-l] Home Valve Cleaning

Sat Oct 6 15:40:46 CDT 2007

Thanks for the advice.  Repair person it is.

I disassemble the Thayers and clean them about 4 times a year--I oil them
more often, usually through the valve section tuning slides--but I usually
don't have issues with run into the main slide on that horn.

I'll have to give the Hetman a shot--I'm almost out of Binak, so timing for
switching is perfect.

Doug

On 10/6/07, Michael D McLemore <mmclemore at charter.net> wrote:
>
> I have to agree with Gabe on this...the Hetman products are the best on
> the
> market, hands down.
>
> 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 Gabriel
> Langfur
> Sent: Saturday, October 06, 2007 2:13 PM
> To: Trombone-L
> Subject: Re: [Trombone-l] Home Valve Cleaning
>
> Good answer Mike!
>
> I would add that I personally have not had good experience with Binak Pro
> valve oil. It may be that you're using too much of it, which they tell you
> not to do. I much prefer oils that you can just use freely.
>
> And speaking of oil, the longer I work at Shires and see and hear about
> valve problems, the more heartily I recommend Hetman oils, which are a
> unique synthetic formula that has amazing properties to both clean and
> prevent corrosion. I would recommend buying a large-ish bottle of the
> Hetman
> Light Rotor oil and flooding the valve a few times over the course of a
> couple of weeks. If you stuff a paper towel in the slide receiver and
> leave
> the bell upright, you can pull out the paper a few hours later and see
> black
> residue being pulled off. This is good! It's corrosion actually coming off
> the surfaces of the metal. The Hetman Light Bearing & Linkage is also
> excellent, for use on the valve spindles, and even though it's a little
> thin, the #7 Slide Gel is great, and if it drips into the valve will
> dissolve easily in the Rotor Oil.
>
> You may very well still need to visit a repair tech to clean out built up
> corrosion or resolve any mechanical issues, but this will certainly help.
>
> Also, Steve Shires recommends oiling the valve AFTER heavy playing rather
> than when taking it out of the case at the start of the day, the reason
> being that corrosion forms when the metal is drying from the condensation
> of
> our breath. This has the added benefit that you can leave the bell section
> out overnight with the towel stuffed there, and any oil that's going to
> drip
> into the slide will have done so already.
>
> I would strongly recommend that you oil your axial valves more often than
> 4x
> per year as well. Honestly, at Shires we recommend 2-4 times a week,
> because
> there is so much bearing surface on that style of valve. You don't really
> need to disassemble it for this kind of regular oiling, and you also don't
> need to go through the valve tuning slides - the main tuning slide
> receiver
> and handslide receiver are fine.
>
> Here's a pretty good link from my friends at Osmun Music about maintaining
> horn valves. The same principles apply, of course.
> http://www.osmun.com/reference/Rot_Maint.htm
>
> As a group, we trombone players are pretty terrible about valve
> maintenance.
> Just trying to spread the word...:)
>
> Gabe
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----
> From: Michael D McLemore <mmclemore at charter.net>
> To: Doug Rowe <darowe at gmail.com>; Trombone-L
> <TROMBONE-L at server5.samford.edu>
> Sent: Saturday, October 6, 2007 2:19:55 PM
> Subject: Re: [Trombone-l] Home Valve Cleaning
>
>
> 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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