Response to Greg Campbell:
A "frequent and sparing" lubing approach has worked well for some of us. Many
of our best horn players have recommended to lube frequently but sparingly. As
Mr. West advises, a single drop down each slide receiver is enough.
Here some more tips:
1. After lubing the rotors and while the valves are still in the down
position, with mouthpiece out of the horn, blow through the horn with a lot of
lung force; depress your trigger valve and blow again. This moves the thin
valve oil down the horn so it won't drip back into the valve slides.
2. Try to maintain your horn position with valves up (and valve slides down).
Dewater your valve slides by pulling the slides (instead of twirling). Store
your horn with the valves up and don't use horn stands that place your valves
in a down position.
3. Apply slide grease sparingly, and don't grease the last 1" of the open end
of the slides.
4. When the grease on the slides loses viscosity, clean and re-grease.
All of the above minimizes the opportunity of the valve oil from mixing with
the slide grease and minimizes the opportunity of residue in the bottom of the
slides from washing back to the rotors. Your rotors will work well and they
will last longer.
I agree with Greg with keeping the inside of the horn coated with oil. If the
coating is thin it won't flow and become part of the mess.
I don't recommend using detergent in the horn unless you do an extremely
thorough job of cleaning everything in the horn. Unless you get rid of all the
detergent-on-grease in your horn, it will make a gummy gunk. (Isolated lead
pipe is okay to clean with detergent and snake.) Clean the horn by forcing
water through it using a hose. (If under more than light water pressure, remove
the slides so they don't fly out from water pressure.)
The above system works well. Greg suggests other lubing procedures may work
well, too. Possibly using lots of valve oil and having valve oil abundant
through the horn could work; I don't know.
Regards,
Larry
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Greg wrote:
Larry Jellison wrote:
> About oiling rotor surfaces, that is. The horn community needs to
> standardize on his recommendation. Then we will be saved from
> thousands of horn threads on rotor oiling that could occur in just
> the next ten years.
I have a feeling that it really doesn't make as big a difference as you
believe.
Even if you use only the tiniest bit of oil on the surface of the rotors
using the "hold the horn straight up and carefully drop oil directly on
the rotors" method, playing position and gravity will make the oil
eventually drip back up the slide tubes, mix with grease, then
eventually the grease-oil mixture will work its way back down to the
rotor surface.
I think the best advice is to make sure your oil will dissolve your
grease into a non-gummy compound. If it doesn't, change the product you
use. Then if diluted grease gets back into your rotors, you just add
more oil to keep the proper viscosity. The only consequence is you might
have to re-grease your slides more often.
Maybe I've just drunk too much of Ken Pope's "keep the entire inside of
the horn coated in oil at all times" Kool-aid.
Different strokes for different folks, I guess.
Greg
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