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Okay i have a question about this all. I use musichem pro oil hybrid on my tuba valves and it works but for some reason then seem to become sticky and get stuck. I had myy horn cleaned all the way and polished. and haven't used any other type of oil on it. could it be possible that myy slide grease cause a reaction and make it slow?

On most of the Meinl Weston tubas I've played and owned, the culprit is the valve guide and/or the guideway the valve guide fits in. They usually are not fitted properly from the factory (usually they are too shallow and have burs). This leads to the guide being trimmed down to a sliver and it jumps out of the guideway causing the valve to stick. Sticking is sometimes caused by the valve guide being too tall, but I have not seen this as often.
Check with Lee Stofer or Matt Walters. Either of those guys can get you fixed up.

Okay thank you very much. I'll look into that. I check my valve guides out today and i saw they have like a scratch along the side of it and across it. so i'm goig to have the brass repair tech here at school check it out. thanks alot

I had to switch to metal valve guides on my 2145 about 2 years ago and have had far less problems with the valves. I was going through the valve guides about every 2 months, which doesn't seem to be the case for you, but something worth asking about/considering. I also switched to Hetman synthetic oil...if your horn is newer try the light piston and if it is older like mine give the classic a try. Good luck!

tubagirl5 wrote:I had to switch to metal valve guides on my 2145 about 2 years ago and have had far less problems with the valves. I was going through the valve guides about every 2 months!

Valve guide material is not the issue here.

If your 2145 was eating delrin/nylon/plastic/whatever-they-are type valve guides at the rate a set every couple of months, you had (or have) one of the faulty valve sets in which the valve guide channels weren't finished properly.

Switicing to metal guides (more trouble than it's worth, in my opinion) only means that the wear won't be very noticable and that instead of having all of that wear on the guide it will now be on the valve casings. The only real advantage here is that metal guides are permanent and not really servicable, so they don't have to be replaced like the delrin guides do, saving a little bit of time. Also, $$$ for $$$, converting to metal guides probably costs more than just having the problem fixed and replacing the delrin guides every once in a great while.

The vavle guide eating problem can be fixed. Matt Walters at Dillon Music in New Jersey has a special tool from Meinl Weston designed to correct the problem that he can use or rent out to a repairman of your choice (obviously one would need to contact him for the details on this). It's become public information (mostly via tubenet) that there was a pretty long run of VMI/B&S/Perantucci/Meinl Weston tuba valve sets (they're all made by the same company) that have the problem. Symptoms include having the guide wear excessively narrower or get sheared off totally in the course of "normal" valve operation. Again, Matt Walters at Dillon Music is the person to talk to if you have concerns about this.

I also switched to Hetman synthetic oil...if your horn is newer try the light piston and if it is older like mine give the classic a try. Good luck!

It has been my experience that the "big valves" don't do real well with light oil and that regular or classic weight Hetmans or some other heavier oil works better. Obviously if your valves or guides have other issues the oil you use isn't going to make too much of a difference.

It is nice to know there is a tool to fix the valve casings...when I got the metal guides there was also some reshaping of the notch that the guide goes into (among other things) done as well. So I did not explain what was done with the horn exactly. I was curious as to when this tool came out? I contacted the company years ago about the issue with my valves...via email and written mail many times and they never got back to me. I would have never known it was out there. Thanks for the info!