polishing a silver horn

[tofu]

[Jeff Keller]

Thanks to everyone that has submitted their own way to going about this. At brass band last monday, I noticed a particularly gleaming euphonium. When I asked the owner his method, he pulled out a little red case of Connoissuer Jewelry Wipes. He warned me that my hands would be completely black from the tarnish that these remove. I spent about two hours last night and watched a really bad movie while I polished the horn. I must say that these little wipes did the trick and very well I might add! These were about $6.00 and there are 25 in a case. I burned through about 15 or so on my Thor so I don't think it was that bad of a deal. I am very pleased with the job. The wipes are small (4"x5") but they did a wonderful job.

Thanks again everyone

Jeff

[sloan]

Thanks to everyone that has submitted their own way to going about this. At brass band last monday, I noticed a particularly gleaming euphonium. When I asked the owner his method, he pulled out a little red case of Connoissuer Jewelry Wipes. He warned me that my hands would be completely black from the tarnish that these remove. I spent about two hours last night and watched a really bad movie while I polished the horn. I must say that these little wipes did the trick and very well I might add! These were about $6.00 and there are 25 in a case. I burned through about 15 or so on my Thor so I don't think it was that bad of a deal. I am very pleased with the job. The wipes are small (4"x5") but they did a wonderful job.

Thanks again everyone

Jeff

Did he tell you what the BLACK substance was?

[Rick Denney]

Did he tell you what the BLACK substance was?

Heh, heh.

I used a whole tube of Wenol to polish my raw brass Miraphone last night. I figured Ray might appreciate borrowing a shiny tuba for once. It had been too long--something like 17 years for the body and at least several for the upper part of the bell.

Yes, it makes lots of black stuff. Fortunately, in this case it's not plating that is only a few molecules thick that I'm wiping.

Rick "who doesn't mind wiping off a few molecules of brass once every dozen-plus years" Denney

[tubatom91]

I have been using Wright's silver cream straight out of the tub on my high school's sousaphones and have been very pleased with the results thus far. I slather it on all surfaces (generally I dont do the whole body of the sousa's i.e. valve cluster, I just do the bells). I dont really care one way or the other how much sliver is getting stripped every time I do this procedure, because well... they aren't my horns and the band director praises me for doing it. I am sure water and soap would be satisfactory most of the time but when you've got helpers (my section mates) it makes it easy to polish a dozen sousaphones after class one day. It's become a tradition to polish the sousaphones every year before homecoming week wether they REALLY need it or not.

[Dan Schultz]

..... I dont really care one way or the other how much sliver is getting stripped every time I do this procedure, because well... they aren't my horns and the band director praises me for doing it. ......

[tubatom91]

I'm pretty sure if I wore through to the brass, I would tell the director to either strip the face of the bells, or re-plate them. IMO It would be interesting to have silver horns with raw brass bells. You could polish the faces with brasso and call them goldwash! But that's my opinion of course.