Finish

[Chris Horsch]

When cleaning my 4-year old lacquered Miraphone (Windex and a very soft cloth, plus a little Pledge at the suggestion of Rick Denney), I noticed that one of the short straight lines of the logo that is engraved (scratched?) into the bell has darkened, sort of like the groove has rusted the way a deep scratch does on a car in Chicago in the Winter. I could dig most of it out with my finger nail, and wiped it clean, but the line stayed dark. I thought about sealing it with a little clear nail polish, just in the groove. Any comments on that idea? Any other ideas? Life?

[Rick Denney]

When cleaning my 4-year old lacquered Miraphone (Windex and a very soft cloth, plus a little Pledge at the suggestion of Rick Denney), I noticed that one of the short straight lines of the logo that is engraved (scratched?) into the bell has darkened, sort of like the groove has rusted the way a deep scratch does on a car in Chicago in the Winter. I could dig most of it out with my finger nail, and wiped it clean, but the line stayed dark. I thought about sealing it with a little clear nail polish, just in the groove. Any comments on that idea? Any other ideas? Life?

Engravings have sharp edges where lacquer wears off easily, and the brass will oxidize under the scratch where you can't get to it with polish. You probably scraped off lacquer that had peeled. I would remove the tarnish with something like NevrDull from time to time. If you clean it with a good solvent cleaner after removing the tarnish, you can paint over it with lacquer (or fingernail polish), but this won't last forever.

Most nitro-cellulose lacquer is hard and brittle, and comes off easily. That's the nature of the beast. The epoxy lacquer (as used by Yamaha and others) seems much more durable, but has a greater chance of affecting the sound (though I don't think so on tubas).

By the way, I would not use Windex because of the ammonia it contains. Pledge will probably do what you need in terms of dirt removal, or get an ammonia-free glass cleaner like Dirtex. A soap-and-water bath every once and a while will also remove dirt.

Rick "who keeps his bare spots polished with NevrDull and doesn't worry about it" Denney