Maintaining Silver

[michael_glenn]

What do you do to maintain your silver tuba or euph? How often do you go to the extreme of getting out the silver polish, scrubbing it with it, and then rinsing the whole thing off? (Those were the instructions on the polish I got)

I just want to keep my Hirsbrunner pretty.

[bort]

What do you do to maintain your silver tuba or euph? How often do you go to the extreme of getting out the silver polish, scrubbing it with it, and then rinsing the whole thing off? (Those were the instructions on the polish I got)

I just want to keep my Hirsbrunner pretty.

When I had a silver Marzan, I never had to do all that much to keep it looking decent. I would polish it once or twice a year, and in-between it still looked nice.

Some of it depends on how it is stored -- mine was in a Cronkhite bag, and that really seemed to prevent a lot of tarnish. You can also buy some sort of tarnish-protecting strips (3M?) to put in your bag and help slow the process.

Overall though, tarnish is going to happen, and you'll lose that fight... best you can do is slow the process. They also say that every time you polish, you are removing a really, really, small amount of the silver. If you polish like crazy (or have a very thin plating), you might eventually see a difference.

Another thought -- polish the bell more often than the rest of it. That's the only part people *really* see from a distance anyway!

[Three Valves]

I'm from the "ounce of prevention" school.

[ghmerrill]

I tend to avoid silver instruments because I've felt they're a pain to maintain as compaed to lacquer. But my 1929 Buescher tuba is silver (either their double- or triple-plated version), and I tried a bunch of things on it. When I got it, the whole thing was mostly black and it took several cleanings to get it silver again. In the process I tried a bunch of different polishes and approaches.

It sounds to me like you're using Tarn-X (or something like it) since that requires the "apply and then rinse thoroughly" technique. It works very well on stubborn cases where there's lots of tarnish, but it's a pain to use on a regular basis.

Most of the silver euph players love Haggerty's in one form or another. They seem to prefer the aerosol version, and my experience with that has been great. The polishing job lasts a long time. However, for something the size of a tuba, I don't like the aerosol since I think a liquid is easier to apply to the larger surface area.

On my old Buescher I use Haggerty's once or twice a year (I don't use the horn much) and in between use one of those silver polishing cloths. Seems to be an easy and effective approach. For something real shiny like your Hirsbrunner, you will probably want to polish it one way or another more often. But the polishing cloth between major polishings works quite well.

[MartyNeilan]

When I had a silver tuba, I found this to be the easiest:
http://www.sheffieldsilverware.com/silv ... p-158.html