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I just posted earlier about "Renaissance Wax" which is a wax finish for anything solid including brass.
http://www.preservationequipment.com/St ... ssance-Wax" target="_blank" target="_blank

Firstly you'd need to get your tuba stripped of any remaining lacquer before applying any wax. I don't know a whole lot about it but think it could be a good option over raw brass.

I guess you rub it on and lightly buff off the finish to get rid of any excess. I believe the raw brass underneath will very slowly oxidise and form a light patina. Again, I think you could polish the brass every few months and reapply the wax if you wanted a relatively shiny finish.

Bottom line- Not going to be as durable or look as factory-fresh as lacquer or silver but it costs next-to-nothing.

Still looking for any other opinions on the wax!

On a YBB-321? My not-so-humble opinion: Get a different horn! I hate those horns...
On a more serious note, I don't think the price of a overhaul/refurb is that much cheaper than getting a different horn. You could go with a raw brass horn. I sorta dig the not-so-shiny horns over the shinier horns. A little character on the horn, maybe.
But those horns, in my not-so-humble opinion aren't worth a silver plate job. And you'd have to keep the tarnish off of Silver Plate anyways. Or, if you like a shiny horn, you could go with a Lacquered horn. An Epoxy Lacquer is shinier than the Nitro-Cellulose...
Bottom line? It's up to what you prefer. I prefer not to play a Yamaha horn because I haven't found one I like. But you might love yours, and it might be worth another lacquer job to you.

I would have one heck of a time justifying a complete overhaul on any of my horns... even though I would do the hand work myself. If you like the way that horn plays now, leave it alone. Just picture those scratches on your horn as gone and the remaining material being thinner by the depth of the scratch. If you want to strip the horn to get rid of the scratched lacquer... go ahead. Then just use a furniture polish like Pledge to slow down the patina a bit.

tubageek1 wrote:I currently own a Yamaha YBB-321, and it's not in very good condition. It's about halfway between Raw Brass and Lacquered. I'm curious, should I get it refurbished and relaquered, silver-plated, or should I just apply lacquer remover and just polish the brass? Money is definitely an important factor here.

The most I would consider is stripping off the remaining lacquer. But really you can take any decent brass polish, shine up the raw bits, and it will look okay for a long time.

Relacquering requires a very thorough buffing and repair of any existing dents and scars. Otherwise, they will really be obvious. Figure many hundreds of dollars.

Silver-plating requires all of the above, to an even higher standard, plus Anderson's price for silver-plate. Figure $2000.

A YBB-321 is not really worth that investment, considering that you can probably just sell it and find one in better condition for a marginal cost less than an overhaul. In fact, I've not spent that for any of my tubas, including instruments a lot less common than a 321.

Rick "who uses Wenol to spiff up the raw brass parts" Denney

Just for the sake of a discussion:

Has anyone ever painted a brass instrument with a color/clear combination like done on a car?

That's a pretty tough combination that works well on cars and would not demand the buffing skill of either a nice raw brass finish or a lacquered brass finish and should be cheaper than silver plating. The surface preparation would still have to be pretty good but not at the level of the buffed horn. Sure would be a lot of tedious wet sanding on all those tubes but it could be a good finish after all of the work. I could see myself being able to apply such a finish because I have done it on a motorcycle fuel tank.

I imagine it's done all the time with fiberglass souzies but does it/would it change the tone of an all brass horn?

Anyone tried it?

Apparently it's already being done, but I don't know if they're big sellers (just for discussion... )

The Big Ben wrote:Just for the sake of a discussion:

Has anyone ever painted a brass instrument with a color/clear combination like done on a car?

That's a pretty tough combination that works well on cars and would not demand the buffing skill of either a nice raw brass finish or a lacquered brass finish and should be cheaper than silver plating. The surface preparation would still have to be pretty good but not at the level of the buffed horn. Sure would be a lot of tedious wet sanding on all those tubes but it could be a good finish after all of the work. I could see myself being able to apply such a finish because I have done it on a motorcycle fuel tank.

I imagine it's done all the time with fiberglass souzies but does it/would it change the tone of an all brass horn?

Anyone tried it?

Painting a fiberglass sousa is A LOT different that refinishing a tuba. Automotive finishes work very well on plastic sousaphones but I think you would find them waaaay too heavy for use on brass instruments. In my opinion, some of the lacquers that are being used today are way too heavy, too. If you REALLY want to make the finish on your horn uniform and pretty... just strip the lacquer and get yourself a tube of Simichrome or Wenol. It's a little work but well worth the effort. Don't waste your time trying to apply a spray-can finish. You would end up taking it back off, anyway.

windshieldbug wrote:Apparently it's already being done

I think that's a blue lacquer...I know King and Conn-Selmer uses a certain type of gold lacquer that gives their horns that color that they have.

The Big Ben wrote:Has anyone ever painted a brass instrument with a color/clear combination like done on a car?

I know there's a sax that I'm wanting to say Bundy did with a Buick Coronet Gold. If I'm wrong about the maker, someone please correct me. I know the Band Instrument Repair department at WIT has one. The finish looks like garbage. You know what the gold spray-painted fiberglass sousaphone look like? The look on that brass is the same way. I think it looks cheap.
I know that someone wanted the paint stripped and buffed with a lacquered finish I heard once. I guess it was a pain to convert it because Bundy didn't clean any of the soldier joints since they just sprayed it with a gold paint.
My thought of it? Different color lacquer looks good, but painted horns look cheap.

Hello,
It's late and I don't want to look up the Jackson State site, but I think that their 20J's are painted with an automotive type finish.
Dave Hayami

Then there's this blue with gold lacquer trim Besson 982 on Rugs-N-Relics:

TubaTinker wrote:[just strip the lacquer and get yourself a tube of Simichrome or Wenol. It's a little work but well worth the effort. Don't waste your time trying to apply a spray-can finish. You would end up taking it back off, anyway.

I was referring to a compressor driven setup with high quality materials. Given enough effort, I think it would look good. Especially if a solid color which would lay nice an flat on the horn. I don't think metallic colors colors would look too good. The Bundy sax painted gold probably would look a lot better if it was painted a solid color.

The labor to do a good job is probably the same or more than for a buffed/lacquered finish....

Something I am going to try is maritime marlinspike work. I think doing the top and bottom bows with turk's heads and wrapping like a boat wheel would look pretty cool and cover up the dents and scratched that would be underneath. There are people who could teach me how to do it where I live.

Jeff "Arrrh, mateys!" Benedict

I used to have a ybb 321, it looked real nice but played like garbage. The biggest problem was that because of the dimensions of the horn, I had to twist my torso to play it. That caused problems with air and I developed all sorts of problems. Even without issues with posture, it was still a very stuffy instrument. I kept it as long as I did because it was a gift from my mother, but when I was honest with myself it just wasn't worth its own price tag. You should seriously get another instrument. There are a lot of nicer tubas on sale for reasonable prices right here on this site. I say that if you can find a buyer for your horn, you should try to trade up.

Leave it as is.
Too much risk with buffing and refinishing, anyway, IMO. I've seen plenty of horns that were done shiny and pretty . . . only to find out they took too much metal off in the process and ruined the horn.