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I was wondering if anyone could tell me the best place in my area (Rock Hill, SC, near Charlotte, NC) to quickly get valve guides for a recently purchased (new) Meinl Weston 2145.
Also, has anyone else had problems with the guides for this horn wearing prematurely? I just purchased it new in March, and the 3rd valve guide is already worn. Or is there even something maybe I'm doing wrong that i could correct so my guides won't wear out so quickly? (In case there are different kinds, these are teflon guides.)
Thanks,
Gray Bach
Kershaw,
SC

Yeah, the guides are known to wear out. Give Matt at Dillon Music a holler and he can send you a few new ones for a reasonable price. Meinl Weston also sent him a special tool to clean out the grooves in the valve casing, so if you are ever in the area he should be able to fix it permanently.

Gray,

Contact Matt Walters at Dillon Music. He has those guides (usually in stock) and can ship them next day air if necessary.

I'm pretty familiar with this guide because (I've been told) it is the same guide as I use on my Nirschl. There are a couple of things you can check regarding guides that seem to wear quickly:

1) Make sure you never just drop the valve into the casing. These guides will be damaged if you don't carefully put the plastic guide into the channel.

2) Have a qualified repairman check the guide channel for burrs. It is possible that there is some residual metal in the channel that is shearing off the guides. It's delicate work to fix but well worth the effort if that's your problem.

3) Make sure you're not overtightening the top valve caps. If you do, it is possible to compress the top of the casing ever so slightly but just enough to deform the channel such that you'll damage the guide everytime the valve is removed from the casing.

4) Consider getting a guide made of a tougher material. Some folks just swap the plastic guide for a metal one. Not as quiet but much more durable. Lee Stofer once told me about making these guides out of PVC. Very expensive, time consuming, done by hand, but maybe the best solution. Not as noisy as metal but nearly as durable. The stock guides will wear over time because they get soaked with fluids and expand, thus causing the channel to wear at them. PVC is much less prone to this expansion. Fortunately I haven't had to resort to this step.

Hope this helps.

My opinion for what it's worth...

i also play a 2145 and my guides wore quickly as well, but its a cheap fix for a horn thats well worth it. I love the horn and ive had it for about 4 years now.

Thanks to all for the replies. I'm fixing to call Dillon's right now. Jay, thanks for the helpful tips. I'll paste and copy so I can print your reply out.
Gray