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With Summer upon us, what valve oil do you use on your tuba piston valves?

Mark

Ultra pure lamp oil with one drop of 5w 30 per piston

With as many horns as I service or play in a week.... I'd be flat broke if I sprung for commercial valve oil!

If you don't bring your own valve oils and greases along with you when you drop off your horn.... it's gonna leave here sporting Ultra-Pure lamp oil and Super-Lube synthetic grease.

La Tromba T2. There are only about 2 people that sell it in the US, but it works better than anything else I've ever tried.

Gonna make a plug for the Berp Bio Oil. Great stuff that has worked better than anything I've tried before.

I am mostly using Denis Wick Advanced Formula with PTFE which seems to me much better than most oils I have used in the past (Al Cass, Blue Juice, etc). I now supply complimentary bottle of this oil with every Wessex Tubas piston valve instrument sold.

Also am trialling Yamaha Synthetic Oil 'Light' which seems to work well on JinBao made tubas for smooth, fast valves.

Both the above oils seem to stop the valves sticking if the tuba if left unused for a while.

Lemon Pledge .

I currently use Al Cass (because I can always find it), but I had an opportunity to try out "Super C" scented valve oil once, and remember liking it a great deal. Anybody have experience with this brand?

b.williams wrote:Lemon Pledge .

A friend of mine uses Lemon Pledge exclusively on his trombone slides. He also uses his shirt-tail to clean the outside of the inner tubes!

I still prefer Al Cass after trying many other brands. I add a drop or two of rotor oil to the guides on the pistons just to quiet them down a bit (mine are metal on most of my horns).

The repairman that does work on my horns recently suggested I try Yamaha's Synthetic Oil. I bought several bottles after the first. It's even offered on Amazon with free shipping. Very good stuff for my Nirschl especially.

TubaTinker wrote:

b.williams wrote:Lemon Pledge .

A friend of mine uses Lemon Pledge exclusively on his trombone slides. He also uses his shirt-tail to clean the outside of the inner tubes!

It also works on valves 2!!

TubaTinker wrote: A friend of mine uses Lemon Pledge exclusively on his trombone slides. He also uses his shirt-tail to clean the outside of the inner tubes!

What kind of shirt? Cotton? Polyester blend? Wool?

Hetmans Classic for the older looser valves, La Tromba T2 for newer tighter pistons
http://www.bikyle.com/T2.asp

Donn wrote:

TubaTinker wrote: A friend of mine uses Lemon Pledge exclusively on his trombone slides. He also uses his shirt-tail to clean the outside of the inner tubes!

What kind of shirt? Cotton? Polyester blend? Wool?

Cotton (I think) with traces of spaghetti sauce and pizza toppings!

Blue juice on my new horn, Hetman #3 on the old Pan Am.

To the guy who had a question about Super C scented oil; I have 2 bottles that I got out of a box of junk. One cinnamon one peppermint. It works fine, but I don't understand the point.

La Tromba T2 is great. If anyone wants some, I know where you can find it. I like it for pistons with very tight tolerances. The Yamaha Synthetic is good too.

For more loose valves I like Hetman Classic. If that isn't doing it for me I add a few drops of Hetman medium rotor.

On my own stuff I tend toward synthetics because (at least from my experience) I don't have to apply the synthetics as frequently as I do conventional denatured kerosene valve oils.

Gotta be Hetman!

Years back I played on a Boosey Solborn Euph so worn out the thing took a mix of Al Cass & STP to get a decent tone.

It wound up in Dan Oberloh's scrap pile.

But that goop did make it play OK for at least 20 minutes...

Dennis

Completely depends on the instruments:

- Yamaha's like Yamaha Valve Oil, I've found. I'm pretty sure they did that on purpose.

- I've found Nickel Plated Valves like Blue Juice.

- I use Al Cass for everything else.

J.c.S.