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Curious Observations w/Alisyn Valve Oil on 2 horns.



 
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Capt.Kirk
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PostPosted: Thu Mar 07, 2013 7:59 pm    Post subject: Curious Observations w/Alisyn Valve Oil on 2 horns. Reply with quote

One trumpet is a mint 1960-ish Holton Collegiate Bb trumpet the other is a Reynolds MEdalist 1960-ish made by Olds .

The Reynolds/Olds Medalist is used 1 hour a day at H.S. for band and concerts and such and get's cleaned once a month if it is lucky. It used to be 2 hours a day but the Band time has been reduced due to funding since they can not or will not afford to have more then one teacher covering 5th-12th grade at multiple schools.

The Holton get's played every night as the practice horn and home and is the Exclusive trumpet used for Marching Band.

It works fine on the valves of both and feels fantastic. The issue is with it dissolving all the oxidized brass.bronze in all the tubes and valve assembly of the Olds produced Reynolds. I shouldnot call it a problem it has not caused any issues mind you. My son noticed that his pistons would have a yellow color to them but it was not staining the pistons it was just the color of the oil. I put some on a glass slide and stuck it under the microscope and you could see the oxidized metal floating in the oil.

I then pulled all the slides and found it was doing the same thing inside all of the slides as well.

This could be a good thing or a bad thing depending......While it did not cause any issues in our case sudden cleaning at that level could cause valve to stick or hang up because the oil would become contaminated at a much faster rate. On the other hand a horn that used this oil especially from new would prob. never have any oxidation build up issues. It is hard to get all the oxidation built up in a horn out with out using harsh chemical and aggressive cleaning once a horn is old. In fact even my use of Castrol Super Clean at 2-4 cups in a tube of warm water does not remove the typical build up in the valve bores of a horn it is too diluted. I can also see how the color change to yellow brown in short order would or could scare someone.

The Holton on the other hand has not had any of this. No oxidation being removed at all from the horn not in the valve bores not in the rest of the horn. Keep in mind they are both Yellow Brass, Both get cleaned in the same chemicals, both have used the exact same oils since they have been owned by me. Both are played by the same person daily.

This is not meant to alarm anyone and like I said it has not caused any issues at all. Since it was enough though to catch the attention of my well meaning teenager that was concerned about it I figured it might trouble other's.

I have not had time to experiment with cleaners for the valve bores because I have never seen staining and oxidation in the bore as a serious issue needing to be addressed in most cases. It has to be really bad before it affects how most horns function with cheap typical valve oil. I usually find oxidation that most cant see or notice on the piston surface to be a bigger issue.

I will try to get around to trying different non-polar solvents to see what seems to work decently on removing it. Abrasives are not an option for routine cleaning and nothing harsh to finish's is either. I would prefer to find a common solvent that is not hard on lacquer or silver. A weak buffered acid would work too but I mean weak and buffered so it would not attack the healthy metal just the oxidized metal and the lacquer/varnish like build up you get from repeated use of cheap oils that evaporate fast and oxidize easily.

Hope someone found this interesting even if it really did not solve anything. People always want to claim personal chemistry issues but in this case one person plays both horns. Both horns are behaving totaly different in relationship to this oil.
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