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I was browsing as usual thru tubas for sale, And the thought occurred to me. Why do some horns that are 20 plus years old still look mint as far as Lacquer goes, while other younger horns have already started to have wear spots? I know there are several factors such as some peoples skin reacts to it, or certain spots are prone to wear because of numerous movement and contact in those areas. But I would think at least reputable manufacturers take this into account and coat a horn accordingly. I guess I got lucky my horn is a 2004 model and I cant find a single spot that showing wear....All this is assuming a reasonable level of care for the instrument.

JJ

If you use a tuba every day for 3 years, it'll show wear faster than if you own a tuba for 20 years, and use it once a week for a few hours.

bort wrote:If you use a tuba every day for 3 years, it'll show wear faster than if you own a tuba for 20 years, and use it once a week for a few hours.

This is true, and again there’s several factors involved and some of them may have been relacquered at some point.

JJ

I recently lacquered one of the 5th slides (there are 3 interchangeable 5th slides) on my Meinl CC. I got tired of looking at the old burnt lacquer that was on it, so I stripped it off, polished and cleaned it and gave it two coats of lacquer. I used cheap spray-can lacquer The great thing about lacquer is you can touch it up/re-apply anytime you want.

Could be wrong, but I'm thinking some of these budget Chinese horns not only have cheaper lacquer on them, they may only have one coat of lacquer, and that's why some wear down to bare brass spots over just a couple years