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A tip for cleaning those sometimes pesky piston valves:

Buy some brake cleaning fluid from your favourite brake cleaning fluid dealer.
Find a microfibre cloth and a drumstick or similar.
Wind the cloth around the drumstick, soak with the brake cleaning fluid and apply to the valve casing. Clean.
Use another cloth to clean the pistons, still using the same fluid.

This straight from my local instrument repairman. Cheap and simple, one should think?

Isn't that stuff pretty toxic? Like... It works great for cleaning brakes, but you don't stick your face around the brakes of your car and breathe heavily.

I'm sure there are plenty of chemicals involved with tubas, cleaning, etc... Just gross to think of it too much.

Bet it would keep those valves super clean though

Brake cleaning fluid is quite caustic and toxic. Some is also chlorinated, so personally I wouldn't use it on any of my instruments. If you manage to get any of it on lacquer it'll zip right through it.

Brake fluid? NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Damn caustic and toxic. It will kill you, as well as peeling the lacquer off the instrument and ruining silverplate. But don't take my word for it:
https://jalopnik.com/heres-how-all-of-t ... 0ingestion" target="_blank.

bloke wrote:
Similar warnings pop up with "brake fluid" as with "paraffin lamp oil" the overwhelming ingredient in many "valve oils".

Brake fluid is not the same as break cleaning fluid. Brake fluid works the brakes, and break cleaning fluid cleans the brakes. Brake cleaning fluid is a very powerful solvent and much more dangerous than brake fluid.

By the way, the article cited several posts above, while very interesting, only deals with automotive fluids, not cleaning solvents.

Hup

Years ago I used some brake cleaner or carb cleaner, I forget (probably the same stuff) to clean a valve.

Dumb move, because I did it inside. I had brain cramp for sure, this kind of solvent should never be used indoors.

I did need mineral spirits to get some years old valve oil off some trumpet valves, but that stuff is not nearly as nasty.

bloke wrote:yes sir...I missed "cleaning"...Thank-you.

bloke "again: LIME is the more difficult-to-remove coating than grease and gunk."

The lime must come from saliva. At least, I don't know where else it could come from.

Condensation should be distilled water and not have any.

So the amount of lime you generate must be connected to the amount of aerosols your buzz spits into the horn. and, maybe to your body chemistry.