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I have the Brass Saver for tuba and I was fairly satisfied.

I have pulled some of the nylon cords a little too much cleaning my horns and it's time to replace them before they break and I have a cleaning brush lodged in my valve section. I was thinking about ordering the brass saver again because, although it only held up for about a year, it did clean the gunk out pretty well between chem cleanings. Anyone know about those REKA kits and how they stack up?

Any other ideas?

Thanks

JL

I was never very happy with my brass savers. After being fed up with those for a while, I started to get creative and try to find some alternatives. After about five or six failed attempts at devising a way to really clean my tuba I finally found something that works.

Basically, I hooked a garden hose up to my shower and used one of those pressure nozzles that you twist (to change it from a spray to a stream of water). I had to go to the hardware store to get the two adapters I needed to hook the hose up to the pipe (after removing the shower head). I guess I should mention that I live in an apartment and do not have access to a garden hose or yard. If you do have access to those things then this would be a lot easier, and probably would not require you to go to the hardware store.

Basically I just blast all the gunk out with a jet stream of water. It worked great! Cleaning it like this took half the time snaking/swabbing the horn used to take, and I got about 5 times as much gunk out the horn that I EVER did with brass savers.

I am very happy with this - especially after all the frustration I experienced trying to make the brass savers and my other "experiments" do the job.

I hope this helps!

fifthnotules wrote: ...Basically, I hooked a garden hose up to my shower and used one of those pressure nozzles that you twist (to change it from a spray to a stream of water)....

...Basically I just blast all the gunk out with a jet stream of water. It worked great! Cleaning it like this took half the time snaking/swabbing the horn used to take, and I got about 5 times as much gunk out the horn that I EVER did with brass savers...

That is what I do with my tuba, mainly for the parts of tubing I cannot reach with a brush or snake. I also use it to get in the many various small, hard-to-reach places outside of the tuba.

The different sprays were also handy when I polished my instrument (silver plating).

fifthnotules wrote:Basically I just blast all the gunk out with a jet stream of water. Cleaning it like this took half the time snaking/swabbing the horn used to take, and I got about 5 times as much gunk out the horn that I EVER did with brass savers.

That's fine if you only need to swab out your horn a couple or three times a year, but if you clean the valve casings and slides weekly or every time you play (yes, some of us actually do), it adds up to a tremendous waste of water.

mclaugh "who thinks if you're cleaning your slides frequently enough, there should never be much gunk build up in the first place."

It's funny this popped back up today - I was searching just yesterday for "REKA" in the archives to compare my experience...

I gave my Besson a good bath yesterday. I actually went the extra mile in that while the previous owner bathed the horn prior to selling, I wanted to be sure I got everything.

I did the vinegar bath (as has been beaten to death here) - and it worked wonders! Stuff was coming out green (reflective of the corrosion that built up a bit. Followed it with a warm sudsy soak snake and rinse. I snaked everything out with the REKA (which I have used twice), and I too found the orange swab ends to be a bit smallish for the bore diameter of the slide openings and the valve casings.

I'm a little disapointed that the REKA kit doesn't quite live up to the hype - on the other hand I guess it's just about as good as the old fashioned snake without the scratching the innards. I think it might miss some stuff in the horn because the orange swabs are alittle mis-sized (at least for my horn).