Cleaned my trumpet

[JensenW]

So, on recommendations from people here, I got an instructor. I called the local brass repair shop, Sweeny Brass, and spoke with Scott. He said he had an assistant that taught trumpet. She graduated from South Carolina in music and so far seems good.

One of the first things she noted is that my trumpet needed cleaning. Well, she was right, it had been...a while. I got some Horn Flush from Mouthpiece Express to try out. I put the horn in a tank with a 4:1 solution of water and Horn Flush. I let it soak for 2 hours. The Trumpet came out quite beautiful. I had forgotten how good it looked. I swear it also played better too!
_________________
Wade
Yamaha YTR 737

The goal is to be a better trumpeter today than I was yesterday.

[spitvalve]

Every time I clean my horns (which isn't often enough) they immediately respond and slot better.

I've never tried Horn Flush. I just use warm water and dish soap, and sometimes soak slides and mouthpieces in diluted (at least 50% water) vinegar if they're really gunky.

I had a young student once who could barely get a sound out of his horn, which was a beat-up hand-me-down cornet from his grandfather. I took it to a tech friend of mine for a chemical cleaning and she said it smelled like someone peed in it. After getting all the crud out of it suddenly the kid could get a decent tone!
_________________
Bryan Fields
----------------
1991 Bach LR180 ML 37S
1999 Getzen Eterna 700S
1979 Getzen Eterna 895S Flugelhorn
1969 Getzen Capri cornet
Eastlake Benge 4PSP piccolo trumpet
Warburton and Stomvi Flex mouthpieces

[kehaulani]

I cleaned my horn, once. Range went up about a fourth.
_________________
"If you don't live it, it won't come out of your horn." Bird

Yamaha 8310Z Bobby Shew trumpet
Benge 3X Trumpet
Benge 3X Cornet
Adams F-1 Flghn

[JensenW]

[kehaulani]

I got it backwards. I meant that my range went down a fourth.
_________________
"If you don't live it, it won't come out of your horn." Bird

Yamaha 8310Z Bobby Shew trumpet
Benge 3X Trumpet
Benge 3X Cornet
Adams F-1 Flghn

[Brassnose]

Yeah. In late fall I went to see one of my local techs because I had an issue with my bass trumpet. While he was doing the work we chatted and I told him that high A and Ab slotting was super tricky. He tried it out and agreed. It looks like the slides will need an adjustment by pulling them out slightly because both notes are too high - however, a view with an endoscope into the horn also showed that after four years of playing the horn could use a good chem clean …
_________________
2019 Martin Schmidt eXcellence
1992 Bach 43GH/43
1989 Kühnl & Hoyer Model 15 flugel
1980/2023 Custom Blessing Scholastic C 😎
1977 Conn 6B
1951 Buescher 400 Lightweight
AR Resonance, Frate, Klier

[stuartissimo]

A feshly cleaned, oiled & greased horn is a joy to play. Unfortunately, my recent experiences with chem cleaning aren’t great. I mostly play vintage horns. During the last cleaning, my pride and joy came back from the shop having lost a lot of the patina that made it such a great looker before. The valves also acted up after a few days and black residue came out. So I cleaned the horn again myself with dish soap and fortunately that took care of the valve issue. Over a few months the patina on the horn turned back to what it looked like before, so I guess I lucked out. But I’m not keen on sending it out for cleaning again anytime soon.

Since then I’ve been relentlessly pursuing other options like always brushing my teeth before playing, and stuff like BlowDryBrass, to hopefully extend the period before another cleaning is needed.
_________________
1975 Olds Recording trumpet
1997 Getzen 700SP trumpet
1955 Olds Super cornet
1939 Buescher 280 flugelhorn
AR Resonance mouthpieces

[jadickson]

Hey JensenW, I was just curious about your location. I live near Cary High School. If we are neighbors, maybe we can hang some time.
_________________
Justin Dickson
Middle school band director. Still learning.
www.BandmateTuner.com

[JensenW]

Justin,

I live near Garner, NC but out in the county. Lorraine's Coffee and Music on Timber Drive is a good meeting place. When would you like to meet?
_________________
Wade
Yamaha YTR 737

The goal is to be a better trumpeter today than I was yesterday.

[Andy Cooper]

I sold a friend a very nice almost Mt. Vernon Strad. A few years latter he commented that it was played out and he was looking at new horns. I gave it a toot - it was pretty stuffy.

I pulled the second slide and took a look...

Just like Men in Black I heard "All Hail "A" Bringer of Light".

[JensenW]

[Bill_Bumps]

[Notlem]

While in a horn safari, I recently borrowed a horn for two weeks that appeared to be held together with the gunk inside and there was a ton of metal shavings in the bottom caps. The 3rd valve had no monel on some parts.

I don’t think it has ever seen a bath, slide grease or valve oil in its life.

After a good bath with a duck, it played like it was a bore size larger! Needed some hetmans 3 pretty bad and some ultra pure heavy slide grease on the second and main tuning slide as well :/

It was a totally different trumpet!

I borrowed another one that played too tight… then in the last day I had it the spit valve was coming off…. I took it to my local tech, he fixed the spit valve and I mentioned it played tight and I had to have the tuning slide far out.

Come to find out the last tech that worked on it had the lower valve pads are 2x thickness and the ones on the cap had been over 3 times the correct height. So with valves open you got about 80% open bore and valves depressed got a out 66% of an open bore.

Tuning slide went back in more than a half inch after that. Intonation got way better. It was like that trumpet broke down on me like it knew I could help it at the 11th hour. It was so strange.

On my new axe I’m going to stick with that blow dry brass thing and see if I can avoid the whole rubber ducky in a tub thing long term. Then again, maybe just brushing real good like I normally do before hand and drinking some vodka while playing would so the same trick.