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I use Pledge, and it works fine. That's what Dave Fedderly told me to use at Baltimore Brass on my horn.

If I may be so bold as to expound upon bloke's advice. The reason for this regimen is because tarnish is, among other things, sulphur and oxidation of the silver. So every time you polish, you take off silver that you cannot put back, and will eventually wear through the plating, which, as bloke indicated, is ever so thin.

Actually, King used to lacquer Silversonic trombones...

Beautiful Sterling Silver bell, why would they?

prototypedenNIS wrote:Actually, King used to lacquer Silversonic trombones...

Beautiful Sterling Silver bell, why would they?

Same reason they lacquer brass, I'd imagine: to prevent tarnishing. I'd consider silver-plating a disadvantage on a tuba because I don't want to hassle with polishing. I prefer the look of tarnished brass to tarnished silver, so if it's going to be tarnished I'd rather have tarnished brass. I think silver would be much more appealing to me if it had a coat of lacquer over it.

Actually, I really like the look of nickel silver with lacquer over it. Has anyone ever tried lacquering over nickel plate? That seems like a pretty ideal finish to me -- affordable, durable, shiny, silver looking -- juuuust right!
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Joe Baker, who will provide the horn if any qualified repairman wants to try it out....

FWIW Jupiter was (is?) putting a coat of clear lacquer over the silver plate on their "artist" line of saxophones. I wonder if the repair gurus know how well that has been holding up as an alternative form of tarnish prevention. My fear would be that if the silver were to somehow tarnish underneath, you could never clean it.

euphinizer wrote:Thank you, fellas. and I will not hire a man with a floor buffer to polish my horn (no matter how nice his beard is)

Not even this guy?

Joe Baker wrote:Has anyone ever tried lacquering over nickel plate?

I'm not a fan of the idea of using nickel plating. Nickel is a lot stiffer than brass and ruptures at only half the elongation. (Nickel's modulus of elasticity is 30,000 ksi and brass is only 15,200 ksi, and nickel has only half the elongation at rupture as brass). Thus, a dent will cause nickel plating to crack and peel.

Pure silver, on the other hand, has a lower stiffness and strength than brass and is just as malleable. Thus, a dent in a silver-plated tuba will not cause cracking and peeling--the silver will stretch to follow the brass.

I've seen a number of nickel-plated instruments with peeled edges and brass corrosion growing out of even minor dents.

Nickel-silver is a little different, and close enough to brass so that if that's the color you want you can just make the part out of it in the first place. Nickel-silver is just brass with about 20% nickel content (60% copper, 20% zinc, 20% nickel, versus typical brass which is 70% copper and 30% zinc). Most nickel-appearing parts on tubas are solid nickel-silver.

Rick "who thinks hard plating isn't compatible with lips, arms, and fingers" Denney

MartyNeilan wrote:FWIW Jupiter was (is?) putting a coat of clear lacquer over the silver plate on their "artist" line of saxophones. I wonder if the repair gurus know how well that has been holding up as an alternative form of tarnish prevention. My fear would be that if the silver were to somehow tarnish underneath, you could never clean it.

...

That is exactly what happens with lacquer over silver plate. I have seen a number of horns that have been lacquered over silver. The silver typically tarnishes under the lacquer then the only way to polish it is to remove the lacquer. It looks lousy until you do.

That's exactly what has happened to my King Silvertone cornet. When it was refurbed about 25 years ago, a light lacquer was sprayed over the sterling bell. Now I have black streaks, etc. where the lacquer is deteriorating, and I cannot polish the horn without taking off the rest of the lacquer, so I leave it be to "patina...."