Cleaning a tuba

[jjelwood]

I have a laquer Meinl-Weston 2145. I have it professionally cleaned but I would like to clean it myself until the next pro cleaning. I have cleaned my old trombones/trumpet but never my tuba. What is the best way (at home) to flush, clean slides, and give the tuba a good general cleaning. If anyone has any cleansers, etc. they use that would be helpful. Also, since is has one rotory valve, can I still lay it in a tub of water, or is that not recommended. Any help would be appreciated.

[Phil Dawson]

We used to take horns to the car wash, lay out an old piece of carpet, put the horn down, and hose it out. It really works quite well,
Good luck, Phil

[Chadtuba]

Would it hurt a tuba to use a pressure/power washer to clean it out such as stated above with the car wash? I've always thought about doing that but have been afraid to do it. Of course I would take out the valves and tuning slides. I might have to try this with some of the school horns . . . I wonder if the shop class or the janitor has a power washer?

[Rev Rob]

Be careful with yea old power washer. I am wondering if you may peal off any lacquer with it, if you are not careful, or you may blow the tuba across the yard with it. I am wondering just how well one can clean out the interior of the tubing in the valve block with just plain water under pressure. Are there any safe chemicals one can use such as white vinegar to help clean the interior tubing?

[TubaCoopa]

Would it hurt a tuba to use a pressure/power washer to clean it out such as stated above with the car wash? I've always thought about doing that but have been afraid to do it. Of course I would take out the valves and tuning slides. I might have to try this with some of the school horns . . . I wonder if the shop class or the janitor has a power washer?

I would strongly advise against using a power washer. Although you can set them at lower power settings, I wouldn't want something that can blast dirt marks out of solid concrete anywhere near my tuba!

[Chadtuba]

As far as the power washer goes, I'm more asking about using it to wash the inside of the horn as in get someone to help hold the horn and put the nozzle in the leadpipe and then each of the tuning slide legs and spray the insides where you can't normally reach with a sponge or rag. I wouldn't do it on the outside and certainly wouldn't do it without someone elses help.

[bort]

Lots of good advice here.

A few other thoughts:
-- Be careful. A tuba full of water is awfully heavy and slippery. And a bathtub is a mighty hard surface. Bad combination.
-- Be gentle. Very few tubas have so much crud that they require any amount of *force* to clean it. And if they do, it's not the "touch up" you mention.
-- Ditto the idea of "getting to know your tuba better" by cleaning it yourself.

[luke_hollis]

Make sure you are very careful with brushes or snakes in the valve sections. I ended up scratching up my valve casings and needed to have a valve job to get them working right.

[Bob Kolada]

Power washers can be dangerous if they're good ones. I haven't been to a car wash in a long time, but I don't recall them being that powerful...