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If you have dissolved the plating, quit using it immediately. You could get a reaction from the bare brass against your lips. I tried using a bleach solution ONCE to clean a mouthpiece when I was in high school and I had a similar result. Fortunately, for me, it was a cheap Herco mouthpiece.

Use dish detergent, not dishwasher detergent, to clean your mouthpiece from now on. It is gentle and it will get all the dirt out. Use q quick squirt in a sink or warm water (about human temperature). Make sure you rinse it thoroughly.

You're supposed to clean them? Damn.


Chuck

i have done this before too


wrights silver polish several times fixes the problem.

Jordle wrote:I have a slight problem-

I recently put my Doug Elliot mpc in some boiling water and bleach to clean and disinfect it. I hadn't washed it in a few months. Anyway, after about 10 minutes I checked it and the silver cup had turned dark brown, and the gold shank was starting to turn black. I used probably 80% water and 20% bleach in the mix. I was wondering if this was irreversible or not. I have the world's only brown and gold mouthpiece if I can't reverse the effects.

The Doug Elliott shanks are bare brass and you can just buff it out if you want it to be brass-colored again. And you can polish out the silver easily enough. The bleach won't have removed the silver, just oxidized it (that's how bleach works, by the way).

If you want to sanitize your mouthpiece in the future, just wash it like dishes, with a little liquid dish soap. If it's really grimy, toothpaste will polish it, but it's abrasive so don't use it too often.

Rick "who thinks germophobes should play string instruments" Denney

I wouldn't even boil it, hot water, soap, scrub it, then spray it if you must with some sanitizer spray (safe non toxic).

BTW, Brass poisoning involves consuming large amounts of brass, not contact. Brass is somewhat irritable though, just as irritable as a silver mouthpiece would be to someone allergic to silver (werewolves and such).

prototypedenNIS wrote:I wouldn't even boil it, hot water, soap, scrub it, then spray it if you must with some sanitizer spray (safe non toxic).

BTW, Brass poisoning involves consuming large amounts of brass, not contact. Brass is somewhat irritable though, just as irritable as a silver mouthpiece would be to someone allergic to silver (werewolves and such).

Yes, but if you have an acidic or other metabolism conducive to electrolysis, your saliva can dissolve the brass and you will injest it.

This is one place where I'd recommend Tarn-X on the silver. You want a thiorurea-based chemical cleaner to reduce the oxide back to metal. Otherwise, you're just going to make the silver thinner. Unlike using this stuff on a tuba, there's nowhere for the solution to get trapped. After using, wash well, then buff if you'd like.

Rick Denney wrote: Rick "who thinks germophobes should play string instruments" Denney

Yuk! I have no idea where those fingers have been Don't fret it

TubaTinker wrote:

Rick Denney wrote: Rick "who thinks germophobes should play string instruments" Denney

Yuk! I have no idea where those fingers have been Don't fret it

Yep, I would think that it would be harder for germophobes to clean string instruments. Of all the instrument families, brass should be the easiest to clean of germs because you can give them a bath without worrying about ruining wood or pads.

OTOH, I would have never thought of using bleach or boiling any part of my horns or mouthpieces. A nice, warm water bath with some snakes is all it takes. (after reading that last line it sounds a little dangerous )

Lew wrote:Of all the instrument families, brass should be the easiest to clean of germs because you can give them a bath without worrying about ruining wood or pads.

You've still got felt, corks, and laquer/silver. I say the clear winners are drums with plastic heads! (Don't see many tympanists who even care, either... )

Chuck(G) wrote:This is one place where I'd recommend Tarn-X on the silver. You want a thiorurea-based chemical cleaner to reduce the oxide back to metal. Otherwise, you're just going to make the silver thinner. Unlike using this stuff on a tuba, there's nowhere for the solution to get trapped. After using, wash well, then buff if you'd like.

Well, i can't argue on a chemical level with you--- but i will say you need to be very careful with tarnex...

as HARD as I try to get it cleaned off after using it, it still stays on enough that you will get a black ring on your lips when you play.

The film on the tarnex also makes the mouthpiece prone to becoming slimy very quickly in the bowl.


I've never had any of these problems when using wrights. And as for the comments about taking a layer off... need i remind you that both wrights and tarnex are neither chemically or physically abrasive.

iiipopes wrote:Yes, but if you have an acidic or other metabolism conducive to electrolysis, your saliva can dissolve the brass and you will injest it.

you're not ingesting much... it should be stress relieving
http://shopping.msn.com/prices/shp/?itemId=149346149

Here's a link to an OTJF topic where Ivan Giddings and Doug Elliot explained this.

http://forum.trombone.org/viewtopic.php ... +poisoning
I would trust these guys in saying that it isn't a problem

Lew wrote:

TubaTinker wrote:

Rick Denney wrote: Rick "who thinks germophobes should play string instruments" Denney

Yuk! I have no idea where those fingers have been Don't fret it

Yep, I would think that it would be harder for germophobes to clean string instruments. ..... bleach or boiling any part of my horns or mouthpieces. A nice, warm water bath with some snakes

SNAKES! yikes

djwesp wrote: as HARD as I try to get it cleaned off after using it, it still stays on enough that you will get a black ring on your lips when you play.

The film on the tarnex also makes the mouthpiece prone to becoming slimy very quickly in the bowl.

Try buffing with whiting (see below) after thoroughly washing the mouthpiece in dishwashing detergent and warm water.

I've never had any of these problems when using wrights. And as for the comments about taking a layer off... need i remind you that both wrights and tarnex are neither chemically or physically abrasive.

Well, yes, you're going to have to remind me. "Abrasive" it turns out, is term of art. Have a gander at the MSDS for Wright's:

http://www.fsafood.com/msds/vault/001/001132.pdf

Wright's is pretty much a detergent in an alkaline base (note the mention of acid interaction) with silica as a "polishing" compound--i.e. a substance that mechanically abrades the tarnish off. Were this not the case, you could just dip your piece in Wright's and rinse it off. Silica has a hardness of about 7 on the mohs scale and is much harder than silver or brass--about as hard as garnet.

If you want to avoid removing metal, try polishing with something like whiting (about 4.5 mhos) wetted with wood alcohol. This is what the museum conservators use.

But if you've GOT to use a commerical polish, I'd recommend looking at one of the "pink" ones like Hagerty's, which contain rouge as the polishing agent, which is a bit softer than silica.

Dang, boiled and bleached it were you trying to f^ it up on purpose lol. might as well bury it upside down and piss on it's grave now.

ZACH336 wrote:Dang, boiled and bleached it were you trying to f^ it up on purpose lol. might as well bury it upside down and piss on it's grave now.

Play Taps on a tuba