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I would like some feedback on possible reasons my rotary valves keep sticking on my horn. It seems like at least once a week, usually twice on average, I take my horn out of my gig bag, and lo and behold, one of the valves is stuck!!

The funny thing is, they have all been working fine when I put the horn away after practicing the previous day. I am carefull to try and drain as much water as possible out before I put it away, and I have to pull the open tuning slide to do this, as the water key is too far up on the slide to rid all the water from the horn. I have oiled the valves and maintained the tuning slides as instructed in the owner's maintenance manual. I have been careful to not pull any of the tuning slides without the appropriate valve pushed down, and I can't figure out what is going on with the sticking valves. It has happened on all valves 1-4 at one time or another, but never on the 5th valve. Could it be tuning slide grease getting sucked down into the valve? When I pull the slide of the appropriate sticking valve and look down in at the valve, it is clean, no dirt, grease, or anything obvious fouling the operation.

Tonight it took me almost an hour of just pushing 2nd valve up and down (after lightly oiling the top and lower bearings as instructed in my maintenance manual) to finally free up what ever is sticking inside the rotary valve. Usually I can free them up in 5-10 minutes, but this is becoming a major hassle!!

This is my first rotary valve horn, I have always played piston valve horns in the past. I wished I had one now! I am spending time working on the horn when I should be playing it! The horn is only 3 months old.

Any help would be appreciated!

LJV wrote:Take the horn to a competent repair dude or dudette and have them do a cleaning on the tuba. At that time they can clean all of the manufacturing "funk" out of the horn and do a check on the valves. Chances are that you have something that should be there in the casings that's binding on the rotor face. I doubt oiling the rotor spindles will help in any way.

You have what is a pretty common problem that's easily corrected in most cases.

I agree with LJV. Ordinarily I would suggest you clean it out yourself, but since this is your first rotary valve tuba, its best to have a pro do it the first time. Here is a site I strongly recommend you to check out: http://www.uni.edu/drfun/repair_video/r ... index.html" target="_blank" target="_blank" target="_blank" target="_blank

It is VERY useful and has saved me alot of time, money, and frustration. Rotary valve tubas need more attention (I would not say they are "high maintenance"--more like "medium maintenance"). You just need to move the TLC up a level and you and your horn will get along just fine.

mmmm... gigbag could be a slightly bent rotor stem (damage from impact).......

I had that happen.... was no problem to fix.

You should have it professionally checked out. Either there is muck in the valves, or something is misaligned. Rotary valves should be very low maintenance - that is one of their attractions.

I flush through the valves of mine with soapy water once per month, leave to dry, and then oil all the bearings, occasionally putting a few drops of thin oil inside to lubricate if a valve seems a bit slow - and that is about it for another month of (usually) trouble free playing. In four years playing rotary valves, I can count the number of valve sticks I have suffered on the fingers of one hand.

Where did you get the horn?

The reason that I ask is because the older 210Ns from Tuba Exchange (and elsewhere) were notorious for this problem, and it had to do with the way the valves and casings were (or weren't) finished. However, the TE models were supposedly undergoing some sort of process between the factory and the sales floor that fixed the problem. This has been 8-10 years ago. If you did get it from TE, contact Vince and tell him what the problem is, he should know what you're talking about. If you got it elsewhere (factory direct, etc.) then you will need a professional to go through the horn and find the issue.

I believe it had something to do with the way moisture interacted with the particular brass alloy that St. Pete uses on its valves and casings. But if you got the horn from TE, it should have been fixed so that that isn't as much of an issue. In that case, you might have a confluence of a number of things causing the problem, and only a good repair pro can tell you that.

If you have a high lime content in the water where you live, deposits will build up very quickly. That might also be an issue.

Try something heavier like key oil or 3in 1. Lots of times mineral spirit oils evaporate and rotors will stick. I like to oil with 3 in 1 and let the valves get slightly sluggish and then dilute it with Al Cass.

Roger Lewis recommends Singer sewing maching oil for the spindle bearings and 3-N-1 oil for the linkage.

But I agree. To the tech. I'm having my Miraphone rotors popped, cleaned out and adjusted right now because they have slowed down. But in my case it's probably just from too much beer, although since I only have a gig bag, something could have gotten knocked about that is not noticable otherwise.

Well I fixed the sticking problem. I started dumping Hetman's light rotar oil down in all the slides, and am now finally getting lubrication on the surface between the rotor and casing. I had a lot of supposed experts tell me not to oil through the slides,
but saw several training videos on the internet where they said it was essential to oil this way. Then I have been using Hetman'

ekwjr wrote:Well I fixed the sticking problem. I started dumping Hetman's light rotar oil down in all the slides, and am now finally getting lubrication on the surface between the rotor and casing. I had a lot of supposed experts tell me not to oil through the slides,
but saw several training videos on the internet where they said it was essential to oil this way. Then I have been using Hetman'

The reason some would advise against oiling through the slides is because certain valve oil and slide grease combinations gum up when they come in contact with each other. I've been a victim of sludge...it's only funny when it happens to somebody else.

Neptune wrote:
I flush through the valves of mine with soapy water once per month, leave to dry, and then oil all the bearings, occasionally putting a few drops of thin oil inside to lubricate if a valve seems a bit slow - and that is about it for another month of (usually) trouble free playing. In four years playing rotary valves, I can count the number of valve sticks I have suffered on the fingers of one hand.

Neptune, do you take out the valves before you flush? I assume you left out a step of rinsing them before you leave it to dry.

Thanks

sinfonian wrote:Neptune, do you take out the valves before you flush? I assume you left out a step of rinsing them before you leave it to dry.

No, I never take out the valves. I simply pull out the main tuning slide and run warm soapy water through from there to the leadpipe which I snake at the same time. Then pull out all slides, clear tubes of water, leave to dry and reoil.

The idea is to flush out any food debris which has blown into the valves.

So, no rinsing with plain water after the soapy water, Jonathan?

WakinAZ wrote:So, no rinsing with plain water after the soapy water, Jonathan?

By soapy water, I mean with dishes washing up liquid and no I do not rinse afterwards. The washing up liquid acts as a good lubricant and the valves afterwards work faster than with oiling alone.

Thanks for clarifying. We Yanks call that stuff "dishwashing detergent".

Eric "who keeps his horns clean" L.