bloke's top secret formula valve oil

[jsmn4vu]

Yep, and it seems to work even better with a few drops of automatic transmission fluid in the big bottle of lamp oil. (The exact proportions are a closely guarded secret. )

[Ulli]

Lamp oil- are you talking about piston valves or about rotarys trunnions?

[opus37]

I agree that Blokes cheap solution for piston valve oil works. For me lamp oil by itself does not have staying power (it runs right off in a short period of time.) I tried mixing in a little mineral oil, but that didn't work so good. It went from not enough to too thick in a drop or so. I tried gun oil addition, and that worked good. I also tried 3 in 1 oil which also worked good. The ratio that seemed to work for me was about 10:1, but it is not exact. You have to mix and try to see what works for you. OK, I now gave away the well known secret (it has been reported several times before on this site). The hardest part is getting the tip of little bottles off to refill them.

[bisontuba]

yep...
This really IS what is sitting around next to my horns:
"crap scrounged from the cases of used instruments I bought for resale"... (and sure "synthetic-dumped-on-top-of-petroleum-based-and-visa-versa")
...and - when I run out of this stuff, do I go in the display room and grab some new bottle of Al Cass, Blue Juice, or one of the synthetics that we stock (or even a new bottle of no-name) ?
Of course not !
I have a two-quart container of lamp oil, that I can use to refill one (or all) of these little bottles...
...so why do the valves on all of my instruments work and feel better than nearly all of the valves on instruments that come into my shop for this-or-that alteration or repair (with no accompanying requests by their owners to "please see if you can make my valves work better") ?

So is this the stuff the Republican Presidential candidates are snorting??

[DonShirer]

I use the pure lamp oil as well, but mixed 7:1 (approx) with 3-in-one motor oil.
After mixing, I suck the stuff up into an empty 3-in-1 squirt can.
Works great, but I do get some raised eyebrows from the baritone and trumpet players next to me when they see that can!