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maybe one of the soldered joints are leaking. try and flush your horn with the valves and slides in and check for any leaks.

I know this is basic, but take your horn to a shop or have another euph player check it out. In spite of your best efforts and most analytical inspection, there may be something simple lurking that you've overlooked by being too close to the problem. We all miss things from time to time.

It's the cylons......But you don't wanna mess with them, so blame it on the french

If an object is wedged in the bottom bow, flushing may not be enough. A trombone snake through the wide receiver of the main tuning slide may reveal or even solve the problem.

Klaus

Those 'round-ish' bottles of Holton valve oil were bad about getting lodged inside the large bows. Nearly impossible to detect running water through the horn or using a small snake. Find some large ball bearings to run through the horn. I once found a TubaChristmas button hanging like a stove-pipe damper in the back bow of a Miraphone 183.

Since you've checked the felts and alignment as well as the proper piston placement, I'll assume you checked that the corks for the spit valve(s) are in good condition.

Have you checked to see if the obstruction is before the main tuning slide or after? This can easily be done by removing the slide and blowing air and seeing if feels open at that point or not. (I do this to check trumpets which have had their valves turned around, and to find out which valve it is quickly.) If it feels constricted before the tuning slide, you can work your way backwards through all the other slides and see if you can narrow down the point of obstruction.

Otherwise, if the obstruction is after the tuning slide, you might want to take a garden hose and try to push out whatever obstruction. You might want to enlist the help of someone to work the valve of the garden hose, while you hold the horn and the hose.

If it's something that *used* to sound good, then that's good news. My guess is an air leak somewhere in the valve block, especially for a 50 year old horn. Did you check the water keys for leaks?

Try what Joe said. I can't tell you how many items I've extracted from low brass instruments over the years...legos, berets, condoms, pencils, a segmented wooden lizard, raisins, even a size 12 marching band shoe from a sousaphone...all the kid could say was "I've been missing that for awhile."

Please don't lose any marbles in the proces.

I once found a clothes-peg stuck in a tenor horn (probably in the bottom bow, but maybe deeper in). To get it out, I had to extend my snake quite a bit - you can do that by attaching the snake to the end of a length of plastic coated washing line - duct tape will probably hold long enough.

Someone posted a cautionary tale about an instrument that had been partially plated inside the tubing. The plating wasn't too well attached, of course, and eventually a patch of it spalled off and blocked something (a valve, I think it was). If a flap has formed, you may need to snake both ways to finish peeling it off.

I want to second what Klaus suggested. I recently had a similar problem with my Eb horn, a YEB-321. Played great one day; the next time I used it I sounded like $#!t. I did just what you did and nothing came out. I was about ready to just quit playing. I took it up to Matt at Dillon's and he found a container of sour cream shaped like the little things that cream comes in at restaurants (I had played in a biergarten a few days before) except bigger c. 1" x 1" x about 2". It was wedged side ways beyond the bottom bow just at a joint. It played great afterwards but I was really embarrased and ticked at whoever tossed it in there. Anyway get it checked out.
Pete

Grooving for Heaven wrote:I took every marble out of my kids chinese checkers game and loaded them into the horn. ran them through the large bugle, and dumped them out the bell. Nothing came out with them, but the horn seems to be playing better. Or maybe it's just all my imagination. I have no idea if anything I did helped or not, or it's just possible that my euphonium chops are so out of shape that the combination of this horn with my sm3 is a bad combination.

Still mad at my dog... she's lucky I love her

I once sat next to a very fine woodwind technician in a repair shop. Flute players would often come in after a repad and say something just isn't right. He'd pick up a screwdriver, turn away from them, and fake like he was making an adjustment. He'd whip back around and hand it back saying give it a try now. 9 times out of 10 they would gush over the "improvements" that he made and walk out totally satisfied.

Horns seldom change their attitudes, so I agree with the votes for foreign objects or a leak.

But did you check to make sure the bumpers on top of each piston are back in place properly? If you left them out all 3 valves would be slightly too high in the cylinder. If only one is out of place, then the 3 valve tops will not align. Just sight across them to check that. Some old horns have been fitted with stacked pads when a properly-thick pad was not available. A felt and cork combination is common. Make sure you have no round parts left over! (Ask the household pets about this, too.) I suppose it is possible that the pads for under the valve buttons got swapped with the bumpers that go on top of the piston - they might be different thicknesses, which would really mess things up.

I once went to state solo contest (junior year in HS) and had a horrible time getting in tune. Only after I played did I realize my valve oil bottle was missing. It had found its way down the bell and halfway around the bottom bow, and of course got wedged tightly in there. I found a science lab in the school and used a rubber hose to push it out. (They let me play again when they found out what happened.)

Mark, I think I know why the horn sounds stuffy. There's a football crammed in your bell (sorry, couldn't resist). It does sound like something foreign is in the bugle. Glad to hear you're going to take it to the shop.

I knocked a big, gunkie, green blob loose in my school-owned euphonium in high school one time. It played Waaaayyy better after that.

Next time you flush your horn, use a water hose. I squirt dawn soap down the bell, wrap a towel around the hose and stuff it down the bell, (you want to completely block backup), turn it on and cycle through the valves until the water coming out the lead pipe is clear.

It's amazing what a clean horn will do for your confidence

-Michael

Alisyn is next to useless with worn valves, IMHO, because it's so thin. You might try a slightly thicker oil made for worn pistons and see what happens.

Get clear, unscented lamp oil from anywhere. Then, get some Marvel's Mystery oil at an auto parts store.

Fill up a valve oil bottle with lamp oil and add 2-3 drops of the Mystery oil. It increases the viscosity of the oil. I had an old King, detachable bell tuba from the 70's that had horrible valve issues. I used almost a teaspoon of Mystery oil to make it thick enough to coat those valves.

Works great and is much cheaper than "valve oil".

-Michael