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I was wondering if anybody had some sage advice for me on this matter: My second valve sticks just slightly on its way up. It's been oiled frequently, and it still does this. My thought is that this is caused by a minor loss of plating on the valve. What can I dio about this? Is it possible to order new valves from King (who made the body of my Gnagey concoction), or should I look into a re-plating job? I'd like to be as thrifty as possible with this, so price estimates on repairs or replacements would be much appreciated. Thanks!

It's not likely that a little plating loss is causing your 2nd valve to be 'sticky'. There are several things that can cause a problem like this. Could be as simple as just giving the horn a good detergent cleaning inside. Could be a valve guide causing problems. Could be a distorted valve casing port. Could be a bent piston. The list goes on.

If a good cleaning doesn't help, you should take it to an experienced repairman.

My first valve always sticks the first gig I play after a beer gig unless I clean it out first.

As Tuba Tinker said, there are a number of causes for a valve sticking:
1) clean and reoil to get rid of gunk/slide grease migrating into the valve/dried food particles/dried beer/dried sugar from soda pop/etc.
2) not pushing straight down
3) a ding on the valve circuit causing a tad of binding in the casing
4) valve corks & felts need renewing so that the normal travel of the valve is realigned
5) a ding somewhere else that the final metal compression found its way to a valve casing (especially with Yammys)
6) valve guide giving out and the valve rotating too much in its casing
7) bent, dented or dinged piston
8 ) bent valve stem rubbing the valve cap
9) valve caps overtightened causing the casings to warp
10) something wrong with the spring, as off center, a center loop stretched, etc
11) any porting in the valve clogged
12) wrong valves -- switched valves
13) not relubricated properly after cleaning
14) insufficent cleaning which actually leaves a speck of gunk behind

and the list goes on.

If a good cleaning and reoiling doesn't take care of it, then, to the tune of the William Tell Overture, "To the tech, to the tech, to the tech, tech tech!"

If this is a newer horn for you, you might to try a different kind of oil. My Yamaha's valves just wouldn't respond to the regular oil that was sent with it, or the Blue Juice that I had. Now, I use Hetman's #1 Light oil, and that made things a lot easier (though still finicky... ).

The Jackson wrote:If this is a newer horn for you, you might to try a different kind of oil.

If it's a problem that should probably be repaired, but you're not going to do that, you might be able to get it working by mixing a little motor oil into your petroleum based valve oil. Just a little will make it more viscous than any valve oil you can get.