I'm from Brazil, and I come here to thank you very much. I know other cleaning methods for brass instruments, but very corrosive, and I never had the courage to use them, for fear of causing brass wear. You demonstrated cleaning with lemon. I did this cleaning on my trumpet and I'm 100% satisfied. It has removed all internal oxidation and does not damage the brass. It does not cause any wear on the metal. The sound of my trumpet is more open. Internal oxidation darkens the sound.
The lemon juice is fantastic for removing crud on raw brass or silver, but as I mentioned below, it will eat off lacquer. It's possible that the lacquer job on my Olds isn't such high quality, but I've decided there's no way to really know what kind of a mood the lacquer guy was in on any given date, and I won't take the chance again. On my other horn, here's what I did. - Left in all the slides -Removed the valves, carefully took out the cork and felt bumpers, put them carefully aside, an made sure they're laid out in the correct order (valve 1, 2, 3). -Plugged the bell with a tapered rubber crutch tip, wrapped in some bike inner tube, so it just fits where the lacquer ends, taking extreme caution not to get it stuck too far in! After an hour, I hung the horn with the bell pointed up, and filled up the bell. - Replaced the bottom valve caps, and the top valve caps. Plugged the small holes with latex ear plugs. -Suspended the whole mess from a cord hanging on a kitchen cabinet knob, with the bell pointing downward. - Filled the horn with lemon juice. 8 oz. filled it. Actually, I started by filling the valves, then replaced the caps, suspended the horn, and topped off the lead pipe. Pulled out the slides a bit, so that the lemon juice would be contacting as much tubing as possible. - Completely submerged the pistons, sans felt and cork, in a container with lemon juice. This method uses maybe one or two bottles of lemon juice, compared to 20 (!), at 3 bucks a pop.
Just took a 60's vintage Olds Ambassador out of the lemon juice bath after 3 hours, and it ate off a lot of the lacquer. Not blaming anyone, but be careful out there. I'm no expert, but acid does eat organic things, such as celluloid lacquer...I should've known better. Next time, I might just cork up the tubing, and fill them with lemon juice, since that's all that's really necessary.
I like to use a 50/50 combination of white vinegar and Dawn dish soap (the blue color) and clean it as instructed in this vid... I’m curious about lemon juice
it wasn't mentioned in the vid' (maybe i missed it?) would we use lemon juice on a lacquered instrument too? or jst silver? i'm thinking laquer is a lil sensitive cuz my user guide warns against using "hot" water on a lacquer finish. i mean, i would hate to look in the tub and see that Kramer (my trumpet) was gone cuz it dissintergrated (eek)
+Amanda S You can use lemon juice with lacquer instruments, but just don't leave the horn in the tub for more than a couple of hours. Gotta take care of Kramer, Amanda!!
I just used this to wash my stradivarius bach trumpet and after the first hour the slides had some pink on them. How do i fix this? This is the first time my trumpet has been washed in 30 or so years
Hey, So after you take it out of the dish soap, don't you rinse it before you use the silver polish? I have a double baritone that my grandfather had who bought it from the Ringling Brothers in the very early 1900s.Thanks
I've got a question about the tarnish or this green/blue thing which is usually inside the tubes. Is the lemon juice in charge to remove also this or only chemical/ultrasonic cleaning can get rid of this from my horn?
I'm from Brazil, and I come here to thank you very much. I know other cleaning methods for brass instruments, but very corrosive, and I never had the courage to use them, for fear of causing brass wear. You demonstrated cleaning with lemon. I did this cleaning on my trumpet and I'm 100% satisfied. It has removed all internal oxidation and does not damage the brass. It does not cause any wear on the metal. The sound of my trumpet is more open. Internal oxidation darkens the sound.
The lemon juice is fantastic for removing crud on raw brass or silver, but as I mentioned below, it will eat off lacquer. It's possible that the lacquer job on my Olds isn't such high quality, but I've decided there's no way to really know what kind of a mood the lacquer guy was in on any given date, and I won't take the chance again. On my other horn, here's what I did.
- Left in all the slides
-Removed the valves, carefully took out the cork and felt bumpers, put them carefully aside, an made sure they're laid out in the correct order (valve 1, 2, 3).
-Plugged the bell with a tapered rubber crutch tip, wrapped in some bike inner tube, so it just fits where the lacquer ends, taking extreme caution not to get it stuck too far in! After an hour, I hung the horn with the bell pointed up, and filled up the bell.
- Replaced the bottom valve caps, and the top valve caps. Plugged the small holes with latex ear plugs.
-Suspended the whole mess from a cord hanging on a kitchen cabinet knob, with the bell pointing downward.
- Filled the horn with lemon juice. 8 oz. filled it. Actually, I started by filling the valves, then replaced the caps, suspended the horn, and topped off the lead pipe. Pulled out the slides a bit, so that the lemon juice would be contacting as much tubing as possible.
- Completely submerged the pistons, sans felt and cork, in a container with lemon juice.
This method uses maybe one or two bottles of lemon juice, compared to 20 (!), at 3 bucks a pop.
Just took a 60's vintage Olds Ambassador out of the lemon juice bath after 3 hours, and it ate off a lot of the lacquer. Not blaming anyone, but be careful out there. I'm no expert, but acid does eat organic things, such as celluloid lacquer...I should've known better.
Next time, I might just cork up the tubing, and fill them with lemon juice, since that's all that's really necessary.
I like to use a 50/50 combination of white vinegar and Dawn dish soap (the blue color) and clean it as instructed in this vid... I’m curious about lemon juice
it wasn't mentioned in the vid' (maybe i missed it?) would we use lemon juice on a lacquered instrument too? or jst silver? i'm thinking laquer is a lil sensitive cuz my user guide warns against using "hot" water on a lacquer finish. i mean, i would hate to look in the tub and see that Kramer (my trumpet) was gone cuz it dissintergrated (eek)
+Amanda S You can use lemon juice with lacquer instruments, but just don't leave the horn in the tub for more than a couple of hours. Gotta take care of Kramer, Amanda!!
What about the water key pads??? Don't they get messed up by getting wet?
Não aconselho o uso dessa agulha de metal para limpeza dos postos pois caso o pano escape ela poderá riscar a camisa do posto causando vazamentos
I just used this to wash my stradivarius bach trumpet and after the first hour the slides had some pink on them. How do i fix this? This is the first time my trumpet has been washed in 30 or so years
Hey, So after you take it out of the dish soap, don't you rinse it before you use the silver polish? I have a double baritone that my grandfather had who bought it from the Ringling Brothers in the very early 1900s.Thanks
+Jack and Laura Shack
Sure, give it another good rinse!
I've got a question about the tarnish or this green/blue thing which is usually inside the tubes. Is the lemon juice in charge to remove also this or only chemical/ultrasonic cleaning can get rid of this from my horn?
Good afternoon friend, did you get the answers?
can i use natural lemon juice ?
+gary escoto Yes, use real lemon juice.
Very interesting! I would assume using lemon juice on a trumpet with lacquer would ruin the finish, right?
Lemon juice on lacquer should be just fine.
cider vinegar.
just less time.