Nickel silver toxicity concerns?

[Ben]

I have a question for the few of you who may have experience. I have recently acquired a mouthpiece that works very well in my F tuba, and I intend on using this piece regularly. The MP appears to be raw nickel silver (the previous piece I have been using with the horn may very well be the same material). While I do not have a brass allergy, I have heard that brass allergy is often truly a nickel allergy, as nickel is almost always present in small quantities in brass. As a chemist, I do know nickel in the correct form is quite toxic, less so as a base metal, but its derivatives are nasty. I do not want to develop a sensitization to nickel. Am I taking a great risk in using these mouthpieces? Has anyone had experiences or lack of experiences in similar situations? I nearly do nearly half of my tuba time on F, and this MP would become my defacto piece.

I imagine there are a few members here who can give me some advice. I will accept any advice given. The wisest course of action is probably just to plate the piece and move on with life.

Thanks

[cjk]

If I were going to use that thing, I would have it plated. Better safe than sorry.

[sailn2ba]

Just plate it so you don't have to worry.

[sailn2ba]

Actually, I think the dust would be OK until until it got into your acid stomach and was oxidized into a soluble form.

[imperialbari]

Yellow brass alloys behave better on the lathe. if they contain lead. Not more than about 1%, but still lead. If that goes for nickel silver also, an non-plated mouthpiece may be even less attractive.

Klaus

[Ben]

Thanks folks. I was leaning that way, I did miss an opportunity to get this done quickly and easily last week... Oh well. Back to Dillions

[iiipopes]

I corrode nickel. Most folks who have a metal sensitivity corrode silver or such. My body chemistry corrodes nickel. So i stick with chrome plated pickup covers on my electric guitars and silver plated mouthpieces.

One of these days I know I'll have to replace the paddles and linkage, and probably the nickel silver knuckles and ferrules, of my 186, but that's the price I will pay a few decades from now.

[ghmerrill]

I discovered some years ago that I have a mild allergy to nickel. (This was as a result of a lengthy battery of tests to determine the cause of some odd symptoms I was having. It turned out that the nickel allergy was insignificant and not related to them. It turned out that I had Hodgkin's disease; but that's another and irrelevant story.)

However, this explained the difficulties I'd had over the years in wearing various eyeglass frames -- since very may frames are made of a nickel alloy. I would get mild, but constant and irritating, irritation from the frames. Even plated frames would result in such irritation after the plating wore a bit. I now wear titanium frames. Some years later I had a similar (and much more unfortunate experience) when I had a fractured knee repaired with "surgical steel" screws. Guess what a component of the surgical steel is? Also wonder why the surgeon didn't ask about a nickel allergy. ... Whatever. When I had my knee replaced a few years ago, I got the high-end titanium part. No problems.

So if you have even a mild nickel allergy, you should avoid contact with it as much as possible. I'd definitely avoid it with a mouthpiece. Like ... Plate it with silver and then plate it with gold (I really prefer gold-plated mouthpieces!!). Or get a different mouthpiece.

I do know that the nickel keys on my tuba give me no problem. But the amount of contact there is really relatively little. So it's a matter of degree. But with a mouthpiece, I'd take no chances.

[SousaSaver]

If I were going to use that thing, I would have it plated. Better safe than sorry.

Better yet, avoid grinding it up into microscopic dust and eating/inhaling it.

[SousaSaver]

Some shops can plate your mouth piece in house and have it done the same day.

...just saying