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What is this? Acid bleed? Red rot? This tuba is not yet two years old, should the joint start looking like this already? Thank you.


Solder defect by jtuba1, on Flickr

Thank you for the quick response. I take it I shouldn't worry about my horn falling apart because of this?

Red rot at that point would be pretty impressive.

Well.... normally 'acid bleed' is reddish in color and happens when acid from the soldering process creeps out from under ferrules and bow caps and gets UNDER the lacquer.

What you have there could be the result of acid but I would rather think that it is just water that's gotten under the lacquer in much the same way... crept out from under the ferrule. Secondly... I would guess that the solder joint under the ferrule is not 100% complete and has allowed water to move from inside the horn to the outside but was stopped by the lacquer.

It looks bad but is relatively harmless. As Bloke suggested... just strip away a bit of the lacquer... polish the area up a bit... and apply some air-dry lacquer.

Having the exact same problem, the only difference is that my tuba is 4 months old.. really frustrating >_>

A sad fact of life that this sort of blemish occurs. Getting a fine mirror like finish and then trying to get some "paint"or plating to stick is almost asking for miracles. So many factors mitigate against success that it is almost suicidal financially for an instrument manufacturer to "guarantee" lacquer or silver plate finishes. When I worked for Schilke over 40 years ago he could not "guarantee" the best possible Anderson silver plate finishes, though we did our best possible to ensure a fine finished product.

At that era you were lucky if your best new Mirafone, Alexander or Menu Weston would hold its lacquer much more than a year and blemishes like in the photo were common on brand new instruments.

The extra time, effort and expense required for manufacturers to completely avoid such "defects" for even a 2 year warranty period would add a LOT to the price of a new tuba.
The advice offered above is probably about as good as it gets.

A sad fact of life that this sort of blemish occurs. Getting a fine mirror like finish and then trying to get some "paint"or plating to stick is almost asking for miracles. So many factors mitigate against success that it is almost suicidal financially for an instrument manufacturer to "guarantee" lacquer or silver plate finishes. When I worked for Schilke over 40 years ago he could not "guarantee" the best possible Anderson silver plate finishes, though we did our best possible to ensure a fine finished product.

At that era you were lucky if your best new Mirafone, Alexander or Meinl Weston would hold its lacquer much more than a year and blemishes like in the photo were common on brand new instruments.

The extra time, effort and expense required for manufacturers to completely avoid such "defects" for even a 2 year warranty period would add a LOT to the price of a new tuba.
The advice offered above is probably about as good as it gets.

Sorry about double post and typos.....working from a phone is rather like getting a long lasting perfect finish on a tuba!!!!!

I've always been told it's flux seepage. The capacitor misfired, I guess...