TubeNet

You have kept one bottle of oil for thirty years? Without losing it or breaking it? Without losing the cap so it all leaks out in your bag?

Congratulations. That is far more remarkable than the difference between rotors and pistons!

bloke wrote:This is around 80¢ per oz. (perhaps cheaper, were I to actually "shop" for it...??)

27¢

My wife thinks I'll never use it all, and she may be right.

Fewer moving parts.

Pistons, Baby!!

I haven't played a piston tuba since high school but I can still remember the sound of them banging.

For valve lube, I believe most people mix lamp oil with a little bit of something heavier. If you use motor oil, that's designed for very high temperature so that's a bonus if you're a hot player. I use ordinary motor oil, probably 10w-50 if that's what I have around - synthetic motor oil is OK but only after the intial break-in.

Never realized about the lamp oil. I've got tons of it around here for (duh) our oil lamps. I'll have to try it out.

For me, I usually only oil rotary linkages when they start to make a little sound. Even then, it depends brand-to-brand what makes them happy. My old Miraphone 188 was quick and quiet, even when neglected. My Neptune made a racket when it got dry (and was then silent seconds after oiling)

nworbekim wrote:i guess most oils of this type are paraffin based?

That's an interesting tangent to this tangent. "Paraffin" may have a technical meaning, I guess it's a type of hydrocarbon with no aromatic rings etc. but of various lengths - so wide range of viscosity, volatility etc. But it doesn't matter, because the word is used for a variety of things and confusion is inevitable. Paraffin is kerosene, and it isn't kerosene; it's a light oil suitable for burning in lamps, but not all lamps; it's a hard wax used in canning, etc. The lamp oil shown above identifies itself as paraffin, and about all we can say for sure about what that means is that it's a natural petroleum distillate -- maybe.

What it does not mean is that it's wax mixed with something, or any real relation to wax.

That doesn't mean some lubricant used on your valves won't gunk them up, just that it won't be because paraffin is wax. It isn't wax, unless you get paraffin wax (which is actually a pretty fair lubricant, on a bicycle chain for example.) I think some valve oil must indeed have that tendency, because I've gotten a couple of instruments with wads of waxy material around the valves, no idea what it is though.

bloke wrote:fwiw...

I do not spend very much money on oil. I use it for CLEANING and for LIME BUILD-UP PREVENTION as much as for lubrication.

Some on TubeNet might suggest to me that these compounds are "toxic". I don't drink them.

This is around 80¢ per oz. (perhaps cheaper, were I to actually "shop" for it...??)



This is around 50¢ per ounce: (bearing surfaces, etc...)



...and sure, when others wish to buy products from me specifically labeled "valve oil" or "bearing and key oil" for dollar(s) per ounce, I'll gladly sell those products to them.

I don't understand how this is not horrible for your health to breath! We play for hours a day, everyday for the majority of our lives. I imagine that has to be bad, in my unscientific opinion. I've seen someone with valve oil like this, and the smell is unbelievable. I can't use oil that has a scent like blue juice or this. I'm not convinced the normal valve is good to breath either. You don't breath through the horn of course, but still.

But, I would love to hear that it is totally fine. Until then, I'll spend some money on Hetmans!

John Banther wrote:I've seen someone with valve oil like this

...

But, I would love to hear that it is totally fine

I think we could oblige, but it isn't clear what you mean.

I think bloke clarified that he uses neither of those products for valve oil.

Odorless lamp oil is really odorless, you can't detect its presence by smell. I mix it with motor oil, which even if it has some odor wouldn't be detectable at this dilution, it's a small fraction compared to the lamp oil. Is it totally fine? I think so, but anyway it doesn't have a noticeable odor.

You mentioned commercial valve oil products; haven't tried Blue Juice, but Al Cass for example has a pretty sharp kerosene type smell, which is at best disagreeable. Then there's valve oil scented like strawberry, vanilla etc., which doesn't sound like a good idea to me but I haven't tried it.

Hetman's helped me switch to lamp oil - it worked fine, but I kept running out because I'd accidentally tip over the bottle while the cap was off. The bottle plus dropper configuration is on the other hand very convenient for home oil mixing. I guess they subsequently went to the more common squeeze bottle container.

The issue is whether or not the fumes are hazardous to one's health, not whether they smell nice. But smell is a good way to ascertain how much high aromatics are in the refined product, unless they are masked by perfumes (which odorless lamp oil is not).

All valve oils were petroleum distillates until the synthetics came along, but there's no assurance that synthetics are any better. I doubt one breathes enough of the aromatics that gas off of these lubricants to do damage even playing every day for decades. Musicians who avoid cigarettes, drug and alcohol abuse seem to live a long time, and most who have lived a long time have spent at least most of that time using petroleum distillates to oil their valves.

I just put my nose up to a bottle of Ultra-Pure lamp oil ($4.98 for a 45-ounce bottle at the local hardware store, which is more like ten cents an ounce, but I've had the bottle for a few years), and I detected only a faint odor of any type. That's sniffing air that has been cooped up with half a bottle of liquid oil for several years. I am reasonably sure that what makes this "ultra pure" is that the lighter aromatics have been refined off to use in other products, as have been the heavier molecules (including those that could ever harden into solidish waxes). This bottle has been sitting in my basement for long enough that if the stuff had any potential for turning into gum in a properly maintained instrument, it would have done so in this bottle.

Without those lighter aromatics, I seriously doubt there is much of anything anything that could act as a damaging organic solvent that could be inhaled. But the liquid should never be ingested, as the label warnings make abundantly clear. So, it's not like gasoline, which fills the air with organic solvent fumes, and not even like diesel fuel, which is not narrowly refined as is this stuff, and still has a lot of lighter aromatics. More like motor oil, except not as thick and without the detergent and anti-foaming additives found in motor oil.

(Actually, detergent additives might not be a bad thing.)

My only complaint about ultra-pure lamp oil is that it just doesn't work as well for me. It was a bit too heavy for the very tight valves on the Holton, and Hetman Light Piston just works better. But I need to flush out my rotary valves on the Hirsbrunner and I will use the lamp oil after doing so. Yes, Hetman's is expensive per ounce, but a $20 bill at the Army Workshop usually buys a two-year supply at my usage level. I can live with that, but if I was oiling customer instruments, I wouldn't use it unless they requested it.

Rick "who likes the Hetman rotor bearing oil mostly for the needle-point bottle in which it comes" Denney

Rick Denney wrote:But the liquid should never be ingested, as the label warnings make abundantly clear.

Indeed, something that bears repeating.

I noticed this morning when putting on my shorts, the label in bold red letters advises to KEEP AWAY FROM FIRE. So glad I noticed that!

Imagine how disappointed I was in Middle School when I realized huffing valve oil didn't get me high.