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Man my high-school tuba (miraphone 186) STINKS to high heaven...anyone know how to clean it out without ruining the valves or having to take them out then re-attach them after i clean it?

Give it a bath in the bathtub. Use a mild dish detergent, like Dawn (don't use the stuff for the dishwasher.) Take out all the slides. Don't do anything with the valves without help. You will have to rotate the tuba many times to get all the water out--and it might take a few tries. Wipe off the water marks with a dry towel or chamois.

I have 2 questions for Loyal. What do you mean by dont use the stuff for the dishwasher, i took it two different ways.

And you mentioned NOT touching the valves, are we talking about pistons?

(To take the words out of his mouth... )

1. Use liquid manual washing soap, not dishwashing machine powder

2. Rotary valves, NOT pistons

The name is Bill.

He said Mirafone 186, so it has rotary valves, same as what I have.

Don't use the stuff for the dishwasher, either. It's very harsh.

In the picture below, I am playing a Mirafone 186...

If your bathtub has the tread marks on the bottom, don't bathe it, because it will scratch it up. Take a hose and try to spray thorught the whole tuba. It will help clear the mess inside the Tuba.

Just cleaned out my tuba with very good results, and I don't think I dented it at all.

If you are worried about the surface of your tub, just put a towel down on it and put your horn on that. Get a trombone cleaning snake and that will help you clean out your slides and leadpipe better than just swishing water through them.

My question for everyone is how do you clean those little pipes in between piston valves? I had to dig my finger in there and pull out the gross gunk.

Well, that's just about the only way to do it. Next time, use a small cloth on the tip of your finger so most of the gunk is on the cloth, not your finger.

BTW - you can use the search engine at the top right of the column and find several other threads that address this issue, and the one at the top left to find some more even older threads.

adam0408 wrote:........My question for everyone is how do you clean those little pipes in between piston valves? I had to dig my finger in there and pull out the gross gunk.

Have you tried an old toothbrush? I'm sure a soft bristled brush with a small angled head would loosen the gunk so that you can just rinse it out. The other thought would be a pipe cleaner.

iiipopes wrote:Well, that's just about the only way to do it. Next time, use a small cloth on the tip of your finger so most of the gunk is on the cloth, not your finger.

Get a casing brush or a test-tube brush, bend it about 1" from the end at a right angle and use that to scrub the hard-to-get at ports.

To scrub out compensating loops, clip off the last 3/4" of a test-tube brush and attach it to a length of string trimmer nylon line. You'll find that you can easily snake those out.

XtremeEuph wrote: . . . . What do you mean by dont use the stuff for the dishwasher . . . .

Salt is used (as a water-softener they claim, but perhaps as an inexpensive filler) in detergents for automatic dish washers. Salt ionizes in the presence of moisture and causes metals to corrode.

alrighty thought so, I dunno if ill take that step on bathing my own horn ....when its brand new.

XtremeEuph wrote:alrighty thought so, I dunno if ill take that step on bathing my own horn ....when its brand new.

EWWWWW!

ok...but wont the rotary valves get ruined if i dont remove them before bathing the tuba...?

No, because you need to be shown how to remove them. Someone will try to explain how to do this in this thread but I think, being a visual person, it's best to see it done properly. You can still get to the valves, through the tubing, with a bottle brush.

passion4tuba Posted:
ok...but wont the rotary valves get ruined if i dont remove them before bathing the tuba...?

No they won´t. Think about it: you´re pouring water and a mild detergent down your horn. You´ll also thoroughly rinse it with just water afterwards.
YES, you will get water in the bearings of the valve, but the same happens to a mixture of saliva and condensing water from your breath, which might contain more agressive chemicals than you´d like to know.

Make sure you relubricate the bearings (removing the bottom valve cap to get to both of them) using an oil of relatively high viscosity. (Hetman´s 13 is my choice)
I do squirt a dash of piston valve oil down the leadpipe, but that´s just me. Some argue it´ll wash slide grease into the valve bearings, but that´s why I use the leadpipe and not pull valve slides to do it.

I´ve been doing this to my horn for 13 years now, and it plays perfectly (as opposed to me).

For removing rotary valves and cleaning my horn, I have found the videos on Jeffrey Funderburks tuba repair index to be very helpful.

http://www.uni.edu/drfun/repair_video/r ... index.html

Ok ....so i dont have to remove the rotary valves...? ...i dont know....this is if i'm just gonna scrub it by hand though right? not if i was to literally just flush it out with a hose..?

No, you don't have to remove rotary valves, but if it's been awhile, it may be a good idea so you can get a soft brush to get any hard to reach down the valve ports gunk out, and give a good cleaning and polishing to the rotors and casings separately. Just make sure when you disassemble, you keep all the parts in order so you don't mix up anything, there may be individual wear patterns that differ from rotor to rotor. Only clean with soft instruments made for the job, and when you put it back together, watch for the alignment marks and make sure you not only oil the rotors with proper rotor oil, but the linkage with its proper lubricant in the proper amount (more is NOT better!).