high viscosity valve oil

[andrew the tuba player]

Hi everyone. So I have a question regarding high viscosity valve oils. I've never had much experience with them as most of my horns have had good sealing, well fitting valves. I usually use blue juice valve oil on my new horn and it works great. But now I'm messing around with my 1919 Conn New Wonder and this thing has been played to death. I've located and temporary fixed all of the body leaks (via tape to get a feel for it) but the valves are extremely worn. 2 and 3 are worn completely through the plating in places. Obviously oil won't cure all of the leaks coming from considerably worn valves and casings but I'm thinking it could help quite a bit until I decide if I want to throw a lot of money into this horn. After fixing the body leaks and getting the valves somewhat in allignment it actually plays pretty well and I love the sound.

So my question is what would be a good quality heavy valve oil that would help seal up the valves a bit? I'm not too concerned if it slows the valves a bit as its just played at home to help me learn Eb.

[Ken Crawford]

Monster oils "smoother" oil

[Donn]

Add some motor oil to whatever you're using. Seriously. If it doesn't work, or you want to hold on to that blue juice, mix the motor oil with unscented lamp oil, that will work as well or better. (I'm pretty sure blue juice is a petroleum product, but some people seem to think it's synthetic, anyway I've never seen the stuff and don't know how well it mixes.) The great thing about motor oil is that it's way, way too stiff for valves, and you have something too thin, so you have your own little lubricant laboratory and you can play with the chemistry until it's just right.

[andrew the tuba player]

Thanks for the replies. I think I want to stick to conventional valve oils before throwing the motor oil in it. I have heard of this before and will Definitely keep it in mind as these valves are worn down enough that the valve oils may not seal it up as much as I hope.

I will look into the other two though. I've never seen monster oils before but I do know that Hetman's is readily available from dealers around here. If the Hetman's doesn't work I'll order some Monster and let you all know how it turns out.

Just so everyone knows what we're dealing with, this is the #2 valve. It's the worst of the 3 but only slightly than #3. Not sure why but #1 isn't nearly missing as much plating.

[hubert]

Another promising candidate would be AISYN Valve Slide Key Oil.
Hubert

[opus37]

That valve is really dirty. Try one of the new valve cleaners. It will help the sealing a bit and make the new valve oils work a bit better. I'm a fan of monster over Hetman's on my older horns. I use Hetman's on my new horn with good results. Blue Juice is good, but thin. Not a good choice for old horns.

[andrew the tuba player]

That is correct. I just cleaned the entire horn extremely well very recently. All of the dark discoloration is from the oxidation. Sorry for the ignorance on the plating. I know a little about newer valves but nothing about valves of this age.

As of right now my interest is solely passive. I doubt this horn will leave the house for quite some time. I mainly bought it to learn Eb and was thinking of doing a rebuild on it some day. That's why I'm looking for some cheap fixes to get it going enough to play around on at home. Along with a valve rebuild it will also need almost every solder joint removed, cleaned and resoldered as alot of the original solder has worn away leaving the horn extremely leaky. Once they are taped up it actually plays pretty well (albeit not extremely in tune and with some pitch quirks). I'm thinking if I ever do this rebuild I will also have a 4th valve added to the side. By the way it is a 3 valve top action.

[tubapix]

I have an old Buescher Eb (190?) very similar horn to yours that has poor valve plating also. I use 3-in-one oil and it seals pretty good.

http://www.3inone.com/products/multi-purpose/" target="_blank

[Art Hovey]

"Break-Free" gun oil also works well for worn pistons.

If you mix motor oil with a lighter oil you can get any thickness you like, but as the thinner oil gradually evaporates the heavy motor oil remains, slowing everything down.

[iiipopes]

This is what I do for worn valves, as it is difficult to judge exactly how worn a valve is, and which of the commercial products may actually work, or just simply slow down the valves from being too viscous, and being too expensive to boot. Not to mention the gunk that most of the valve oils designed for "classic" or "vintage" (again, read: worn valves) build up in the horn.

I take a small standard 2-ounce valve oil bottle and fill it half-full with a conventional valve oil. I use Roche-Thomas, but Al Cass, or any of the other standard petroleum-based valve oils, will work.

Then I take a bottle of pharmaceutical grade mineral oil, and with a small dropper, add a couple of drops to the bottle to increase the viscosity. Put the lid on the bottle, shake to mix, and then apply to the valves to see if it restores compression. If it doesn't, but the valves still have good velocity, I add a drop or two more at a time, repeat the process, then stop when it seems like the valves are starting to drag. Then I add another splash of valve oil to the bottle to bring the viscosity back down to just below where the valves slow down, label the mixture, then play on. As I use the valve oil and need to refill the small case bottle out of my larger reserve bottle, I can then duplicate the mixture and keep playing.

You can get a small bottle of pharmaceutical grade mineral oil at a drug store for about the same price as these too-high-priced-marketing-ploy bottles that will last you essentially the rest of your playing days. I just did a quick Google search: Hetmans #3 is @$7.00 per 2-ounce bottle. CVS mineral oil is $5.50 for a 16-ounce bottle. You could even use J&J Baby Oil, if you can stand the aroma, for $2.00 for a 3-ounce bottle, and probably use it directly on valves that you are trying to get by until the decision is made whether to send them off for replating.

Has it become apparent that I am not impressed with so-called "vintage" or "classic," and especially not impressed with "synthetic" valve oils?

[Donn]

"Break-Free" gun oil also works well for worn pistons.

If you mix motor oil with a lighter oil you can get any thickness you like, but as the thinner oil gradually evaporates the heavy motor oil remains, slowing everything down.

yes, there would eventually be a substance that looked like partially melted paraffin...

There would be? How would this come about, and how long would it take?

I can confirm Art Hovey's observation, that's what happens with my tubas too. The valves don't just dry out, they remain oily but are no longer well lubricated. I don't oil my valves every day like I guess some players do, it takes a while for this to happen.

Just briefly reading up on Break-Free CLP, it seems to be kind of multipurpose stuff - cleans carbon, inhibits rust, lubricates. If that's useful in tuba valves, it would be interesting to know what regular valve lubricants have those properties.

[andrew the tuba player]

Ok. I couldn't find any thick valve oils local ( they only stock AL Cass and blue juice) so I picked up a small bottle of 3 in 1 oil at the store today. It's only $2.35 so if it works out it would be cheap and with as little as I play the horn it will last a long time.

I will check into the mineral oil though if this doesn't work out as well as I hope. That sounds like a good route.

I just pulled the horn apart and gave it a good long soak in hot soapy water to clean out all of the old oil and moisture build up. I'm letting it dry out good overnight so there is no other moisture to interfere with the first test. I Will Let Everyone Know How The 3 in 1 works tomorrow if I have time to throw it back together and test it. I also bought better tape to seal the joints with so hopefully it will play a lot better.

This horn seems to focus well in the 2nd and 3rd octaves and lock in pitch (albeit with a certain degree of lipping on certain notes) and has that nice light and clear bass tone, but it does start to loose that lock and focus in the first octave especially the Eb below the staff and below that.

[andrew the tuba player]

I figured that the low register wouldn't be as clear as the high given the size of the body tubing compared to the bugel. That and being a bass tuba the high register will come out clearer as well. I've only ever played one other Eb (a very nice Besson 983) and that was only for a few minutes years ago so this is definitely a learning experience. The thing that concerns me is that when played in the first octave it feels airy. Almost like holding the water key partially open. But above that it feels fine. This may also be the consequences of playing a tuba that's sealed mostly with tape

I do need to play with mouthpieces once I get everything sealed up. Right now the best luck I've had is with a Lasky 30H but that is a pretty large mouthpiece. The one it came with is an old Rudolf Meinl 3 that has a smaller, thicker rim and a fairly deep cup. I'll probably put this one on it when I put it together. The mouthpiece is one thing that has to be taped as someone did some crazy receiver 'modifications' to it. It looks like they put an extension behind the original receiver and then put a larger receiver on top of the original. I think at one point the leadpipe was pulled and broken. The brace and receiver have been resoldered and there is a patch in a place that looks like where the stress would have broken the leadpipe. Now none of the mouthpieces will fit correctly and move around a lot. A new lead pipe would greatly benefit the horn. I'm pretty sure this was some sort of a service horn that got "speed over quality" repairs.




Here's the receiver 'stack up'.

[andrew the tuba player]

Well I finally got around to getting it back together. I taped all of the solder joints on the horn and put some straight 3in1 oil in it. The oil helped alot. It did slow it down a lot as I didn't dilute it on the first run.

But...

As I was playing I set the horn down for a minute and looked at the valve block and every knuckle had oil seeping out of it. Enough that it had actually started running down the slides. And there is also a "patch" (read glop of solder) where the thumb ring on most tubas would be from where the acids and condensation had eaten through the tube that was literally dripping oil on the floor. So I think I found my leaks. I think that this horn may finally be done. Considering the cost of a complete tear down, rebuild, valve job and lead pipe just to get it playing (not to mention adjusting slide lengths to get it in tune) compared to the value of the horn I don't think it's a very viable project.

Thanks for the info though. As I said the oil did help quite a bit and this has been very informative.

[PaulMaybery]

For those of you pent upon concocting your own valve oil, forget ye not the properties of Glycerin. It keeps things even more slippery and also retards evaporation and is available at your local pharmacy. A few ounces of ultra pure lamp oil and several drops of glycerin. Add some thicker oil for viscosity, but the glycerin will keep things smooth.

[andrew the tuba player]

That is very true. Using straight 3in1 definitely slowed it down to the point of not being able to play anything even moderately quick. A few times they would actually stick half way because the springs did not have the power to push them up. The only reason I went with staight oil was to test the sealing properties at the fullest level. Had the rest of the horn been sealed up I had planned to start diluting batches of it until I found the lightest viscosity that would seal off the valves. Glycerin sounds like it would have helped alot in this regard.

[vespa50sp]

So my question is what would be a good quality heavy valve oil that would help seal up the valves a bit? I'm not too concerned if it slows the valves a bit as its just played at home to help me learn Eb.

Just use trombone slide oil. It's a little heavier and will not slow down the valves much.