My 2014 Wisemann 900 is developing these reddish spots on the underside of the leadpipe. They seem to be propagating more over time. Not to get into a discussion of Chinese metallurgy, my question is, without a boroscope is there any way to rule out red rot? If this is a surface phenomenon, is there something preventive I should be applying or doing? I don't know of a decent tech in the Tampa area that I want to trust my horn to so I figured I'd put this out to the Tubenet community as there is a lot of knowledge here. Thanks very much.
2014 Wisemann 900 with Laskey 30H
~1980 Cerveny 4V CC Piggy
1935 Franz Schediwy BBb
1968 Conn 2J (thinking of selling)
Most likely moisture/sweat penetrating flaws in the lacquer from the outside and being held against the metal. It will be at a couple decades before they cause any functional harm, but they will continue to get uglier.
Prevention: wipe it down every time you touch it.
Improvement: strip the lacquer
$22.99 boroscope ordered from Amazon and hoping for the best. To contradict my first post this could be all about metallurgy now that I'm further educating myself on dezincification. I'm very conscious of playing with a clean mouth, although by no means am I one to treat this thing with kid gloves. No issues to date with multiple British euphoniums so I'll proceed with internal inspection and go from there.
2014 Wisemann 900 with Laskey 30H
~1980 Cerveny 4V CC Piggy
1935 Franz Schediwy BBb
1968 Conn 2J (thinking of selling)
Got it and thanks very much for the tips. I'm not averse to bringing my horn to a decent tech and suspect this will be the outcome after I play around with the scope. If need be, I'll ship it on a Greyhound to someone with a good reputation in the low brass community. More to come with photos of the lumen in a few days.
2014 Wisemann 900 with Laskey 30H
~1980 Cerveny 4V CC Piggy
1935 Franz Schediwy BBb
1968 Conn 2J (thinking of selling)
I would try one exploratory measure on the outside before going overboard about these spots. I have seen spots like this on fairly new instruments which were under the lacquer, but not through the tube. I would suggest taking something like a small knife blade and just scraping the lacquer off of one or two of the spots, then taking some metal polish or #0000 steel wool to remove the discoloration from the surface. If the spots completely disappear, then there was a flaw in the lacquer only, and you can wipe down the area with rubbing alcohol, touch up the lacquer with clear fingernail polish, and it ceases to be an issue. If the spot is still visible, then it came through from the inside, and you have an issue to be repaired by a professional. It is always good to have your instrument professionally cleaned and serviced, too.
Lots of good information here. Even though it's a fairly new tuba it could be red rot. Reminds me of a story from Alexander.
So apparently one time they had a bunch of tubas in the show room and this tuba player came to try them out. He played all of them for a few hours then left. By the weeks end all the lead pipes had red rot. Needless to say the people at Alexander weren't very happy about this. So now unless ordered otherwise all the tubas (and I think all of their brass) come with a gold brass leadpipe as standard. Most of their vertical tuning main tuning slides (Alex F and C tubas) also come with gold brass main tuning slide bows.
If it is red rot then I'd recommend just getting a new leadpipe now. Gold brass or nickel silver. Get someone like Dan oberloh or lee stofer to make one for you. It'll be money well spent.
Some heavy hitters coming to the plate on this one. I'm glad to follow through with these suggestions and report back. I'm sure there are others out there who can learn from this as well. Thanks Lee for offering a glimmer of hope. Either way there's something to learn.
2014 Wisemann 900 with Laskey 30H
~1980 Cerveny 4V CC Piggy
1935 Franz Schediwy BBb
1968 Conn 2J (thinking of selling)
Results for those interested....
Borescope results positive for green slime (which is now removed) and, most importantly, negative for internal metal disease. Lee Stofer's surface blade test demonstrates this is a lacquer issue and or surface phenomenon. Feeling fortunate that this is limited to the lead pipe. Next step, setting up a chem clean. Thanks to all for the input. Thinking now of other inventive ways to use the borescope. A very cool tool indeed.
2014 Wisemann 900 with Laskey 30H
~1980 Cerveny 4V CC Piggy
1935 Franz Schediwy BBb
1968 Conn 2J (thinking of selling)
Thanks Bloke for the candid assessment and contact info. I dig what the 900 has done to help me up my game and plan to keep this baby for the long haul. I'll contact Wisemann and work on getting a replacement lead pipe for when the inevitable occurs. As they are not a custom manufacturer not sure about getting one in nickel silver but I'll sure ask. In the meantime a good opportunity for all to revisit leadpipe metallurgy and cleanliness.
2014 Wisemann 900 with Laskey 30H
~1980 Cerveny 4V CC Piggy
1935 Franz Schediwy BBb
1968 Conn 2J (thinking of selling)
Chinese brass is made out of old door knobs and ashtrays. That is why the German manufacturers use metal made by Wieland-Germany and gold brass, 80% copper, for leadpipes.
Maybe they call them "red" states because of this?
After lo these many years with every type of external corrosion and no apparent red rot, I tend to be a little skeptical myself, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist, just that everything red is not red rot.
If you're like me and your instruments haven't rotted out from under you before, then maybe it's not to worry about overly. The guy who trashed the Alexander showroom, or the guys who have what machinists call "piss finger" who can't touch metal without causing it to corrode, they had better look out.
Oh, it exists, no doubt about that. But if OP has checked it out a couple of ways and it doesn't look like his case is actually red rot, then he would join the very large number of people who saw red corrosion on their tubas that turned out not to be red rot, am I right?
Some tubas seem especially predisposed to red superficial corrosion, maybe due to lacquer formula? For example the Bach tubas that were made on the Olds production tooling, and to some extent the Olds tubas too.
