Valve Oil Recipes?

[TubaTodd]

Eye of newt...
nose of Clown...
...who has the best recipe in town?

I've read several posts regarding using lamp oil on valves and anhydrous lanolin for slides. What is your favorite homemade valve oil recipe?

[Art Hovey]

I have been using anti-freeze as a valve cleaner-lubricant lately. It leaves no residue and actually seems to remove crud.
On valve slides I use Radio Shack Lube-Gel or motor oil or break-free gun oil, depending on the desired resistance.

[Dan Schultz]

I have been using anti-freeze as a valve cleaner-lubricant lately. ...

I've heard stories of iced-tea sweetened with ethylene glycol (anti-freeze) being used as poison!

[sloan]

My favorite valve oil is Hetman's 3.5: half and half Classic Piston and Light Slide oils. Just the thing when what you really need is a valve job.

I think I still have a jar of anhydrous lanolin kicking around somewhere - you are welcome to it, if you want it.

[Rick Denney]

I have been using anti-freeze as a valve cleaner-lubricant lately. It leaves no residue and actually seems to remove crud.
On valve slides I use Radio Shack Lube-Gel or motor oil or break-free gun oil, depending on the desired resistance.

Note for the kiddies: The ethylene glycol in the green-colored automotive antifreeze is extremely poisonous. Fatally so--four ounces is enough to kill and average-sized man, and much less can make you really sick. Conventional valve oil is made from petroleum distillates and is not at all good for you, but it won't put you in the grave in similar quantities. Art knows this, of course, and does what it takes to make sure that nothing in the instrument ends up in his mouth. That includes not turning the instrument upside down which can allow drainage back through the mouthpiece.

Pets are even more sensitive. A cat, for example, can be killed by licking their paws after walking through a puddle of antifreeze. Clean up your spit puddles if you use antifreeze for valve oil.

But considering these warnings, antifreeze includes a quality, water-based lubricant and a whole package of corrosion inhibitors. The lubricant is there for the bearings in a car's water pump, and to keep the seals from burning up. It's poisonous enough to kill algae and slime, too.

The non-toxic propylene glycol antifreeze (known as "RV antifreeze" and intended for use in potable water systems) has the corrosion package, but it does not have the lubricant and it is not poisonous to algae and slime growth, both of which will undermine the corrosion inhibitor.

Rick "for whom five bucks worth of Hetman's Light Piston lasts a year and requires no mixing or additional care" Denney

[DonShirer]

7 parts pure lamp oil plus 1 part 3-in-one. (Actual results may differ because of the ineptitude and/or sobriety of the mixer.)

And I performed at the same concert with Art last week and can testify not only that he is very much alive and kicking, but that he also ex-(not in-)hales when playing and rotates his tuba in the proper direction when desalivating it.

And pure lamp oil is available at my local hardware and discount stores in quart-like bottles. (Mine has lasted over 4 years now.)

[tubbba]

Are these formulae intended to be specific to pistons, or are they also compatible with rotors?

I've been using the smelly mineral-spirit stuff forever. I like the idea of a (more) pleasant smelling alternative.

[Dan Schultz]

Also, where can I get lamp oil these days? Walmart just stopped carrying it recently; Target, Home Depot and Lowe's also no longer carry this (at least not in Mississippi). What is up with that?

Amazon sells Lamplight Farms Ultra-Pure Lamp Oil it for $7.99/quart which makes it less than half the price of Roche Thomas Premium Valve Oil. I don't want to start a valve oil war, but does it really work about as well as anything else?

I bought two quart jugs at Meinard's last fall for around $10. Recently, I've picked up quart bottles from Dollar Store for around $4. Wal-mart and the like probably quit carrying the ultra-pure (unscented) stuff simply because 'common' folks want the smelly citronella stuff for use in their patio torches.

[tofu]

Also, where can I get lamp oil these days? Walmart just stopped carrying it recently; Target, Home Depot and Lowe's also no longer carry this (at least not in Mississippi). What is up with that?

At my local Walmart it is a seasonal item. It disappears in the summer when the Citonella shows up and then reappears in the fall. They probably assume folks only want it for indoor use and prefer the Citronella for the bugs outdoors in the summer.

[djwesp]

I use 6 parts lamp oil, 1 part marvel mystery oil, 1 part lucas power steering fluid, then a dash of scented oil. The scented oil is a bunch I picked up from a huge candle outlet in Russellville, Arkansas and it smells like boy. Took me a while to get the right amount, first attempt was a little potent. I think it is called Fantasy. It was dirt cheap, is non corrosive, and mixes into the solution completely.

I got the recipe from a very famous, that shall remain nameless tubist. Maybe he'll stop lurking and start posting in this thread.

The Lucas Power Steering Fluid makes all the difference in this recipe. I used the 7:1 mixture before this and found it to be okay, but not on par with the 6:1:1 recipe, which is phenomenal.

[royjohn]

I remember a recipe with unscented lamp oil and Marvel Mystery Oil . . . but no power steering fluid. I can find Lucas Power Steering Stop Leak, but no Power Steering Fluid locally. Could I use another [generic?] power steering fluid in place of the Lucas or is it actually the PS Stop Leak we're talking about here?

[sloan]

I remember a recipe with unscented lamp oil and Marvel Mystery Oil . . . but no power steering fluid. I can find Lucas Power Steering Stop Leak, but no Power Steering Fluid locally. Could I use another [generic?] power steering fluid in place of the Lucas or is it actually the PS Stop Leak we're talking about here?

No, no, no...these recipes only work if you use the specific brand name products. Tinkering with the ingredients can lead to slurred speech instead of slurred notes.

[MartyNeilan]

There was an old recipe that circulated on the previous incarnation of TubeNet that involved a bottle of Al Cass with a few drops of Slick 50 mixed in. One of my complaints about Al Cass is that is evaporates too soon; the PTFE in Slick 50 keeps the pistons lubed. Adjust the amount carefully; too much Slick 50 and the oil may become thicker than you want for very tight pistons. I see recently that a well known mouthpiece maker is now selling a valve oil with PTFE mixed in. I wonder where he got the idea?

[djwesp]

I can find Lucas Power Steering Stop Leak, but no Power Steering Fluid locally.

Depending on where you are the product will be titled Lucas Power Steering Stop Leak or Lucas Power Steering Fluid. They are the same product.

The little bottle will last you for years.

The hogwash given to me is that the chemicals that make the rubber hoses swell preserve the felts and rubber washers in the horn. Take that for what it probably is, hogwash.

[djwesp]

I see recently that a well known mouthpiece maker is now selling a valve oil with PTFE mixed in. I wonder where he got the idea?

Yep, and that stuff is phenomenal. But it is not as fun as making your own .

[tubatooter1940]

I read a post by bloke years ago about mixing ultra pure lamp oil with 30 weight motor oil.
My 70 year old King has a bit of valve wear.
I buy this 5W40 oil by the gallon for my marine diesel kicker. I tried 10 drops of 5W40 to an Alcass bottle full of lamp oil. I gradually kicked this up tp 20 drops when bloke posted to add the heavy oil until it just begins to slow valve action.
This stuff evaporates more slowly than regular valve oil.
Happy boy!
toots

[David Schwartz]

Eye of newt... nose of Clown... who has the best recipe in town?

Julia Rose's horn website has a rotor oil formula which she attributes to Lawson Horns. One part 5-weight machine oil is thinned with five parts kerosene or trumpet light piston oil. In the Hetman line, piston oils are lighter than rotor oils. The 5W machine oil by itself can be used as ball joint oil.

Slide grease is broken down by valve oils, so I' haven't used homemade lanolin formulations except for my fingertips in the winter. CVS sells small containers of anhydrous lanolin with the products for nursing mothers. It works well in a pinch.

[Donn]

They probably assume folks only want it for indoor use and prefer the Citronella for the bugs outdoors in the summer.

I rushed up to our neighborhood hardware store, which luckily still stocks the plain stuff, quite odorless. I didn't ask, but probably they will stick with that all year - In Seattle, we don't worry much about summer.

But paraffin, yes - in fact, Ultra Pure lamp oil is paraffin, a mixture of C14-C16 paraffins to be precise, per material safety data sheet. So the label on my bottle says `paraffin lamp oil', but I'm guessing that won't be a problem.

[Michael Bush]

One part 5-weight machine oil is thinned with five parts kerosene or trumpet light piston oil.

Is anyone confident this is actually better than just buying a bottle of Hetman rotor oil? Okay, it's cheaper by the ounce. But to lube rotary valves once a week the Hetman's is not a bank-breaking investment.

If it's really better for the valves or the music, I'll do it. But I'm not convinced. Am I wrong?

[Donn]

Lamp oil is kerosene that has been refined an additional step. Paraffin is WAX or MINERAL OIL. In ENGLAND kerosene is called "paraffin" and paraffin is called "paraffin wax". I am speaking about the mineral oil used as an additive in valve oils to prevent evaporation, whereas, kerosene (British "paraffin") is what causes the evaporation in the first place by being so thin. Kerosene is not called "paraffin" in the US. We use that word to describe the wax (solid) or the liquid (mineral oil).

This is confusing - I say "potato", how about you?

I am not a chemist, but from a brief research into the matter, paraffin as a technical term encompasses a fairly broad range of hydrocarbons, all sharing some sort of formulaic trait but in a large range of sizes. According to the wikipedia article, methane belongs to the paraffin family, on the very light end of the scale, and then there are the waxes on the heavy end, with of course lots of possibilities in between that will be liquid at room temperature.

The "Lamplight Ultra-Pure Paraffin Lamp Oil" I bought yesterday is composed of C5-20 paraffins, or C14-16 paraffins depending on the MSDS revision you get.

Mineral oil: "Mineral oils are of variable composition depending on the boiling point of the fractions used. For food purposes usually liquid petrolatum or liquid paraffin are employed which consist essentially of n-alkanes and some cyclic paraffins." My guess is that whatever a cyclic paraffin is, it might solidify at a relatively high temperature compared to the paraffin used in lamp oil, but at any rate it looks like mineral oil is distinctly different from `paraffin lamp oil' e.g. Ultrapure.

Adding to the confusion, there's a valve oil product "Ultrapure Professional Valve Oil", composed of "proprietary light synthetic oil" ... so, I think that's none of the above.

Now, vegetable oils - why, that's just not a very good idea. They polymerize on exposure to oxygen, like linseed oil et al. Hot lye might be pretty effective once that happens, or maybe TSP.