Sorry, Jack. You are sounding like my mother-in-law as she was beginning to settle into senility. She insisted that the world conform to what she wanted instead of being what it was. Well, Bruce, if your aim was to be downright offensive, you've succeeded. I asked what I thought - and still think -...

It's even rarer to find a French horn in silver plate. Nickel silver and yellow brass are the standards, with the occasional exotic material being used for bell flares. Yes, but according to what I've been told, french horns are only used in orchestral work - not in brass bands, so I can see that a...

greenbean wrote: ↑

Thu Jul 26, 2018 6:18 pm

Let's face it: Silver trombones look goofy!

Why? Why does another instrument - such as a cornet or euphonium - look fine in silver plate, but a silver plated trombone look 'goofy'? Or are you just trying to wind me up?

You can get a trombone in silver plate if you want. Yes, I know you can get them in silver plate; but what puzzles me is looking at British brass bands - typically, every instrument in the line-up is silver, except for trombones, which are almost invariably lacquered brass. And I can't think of any...

Question; is there a reason why most trombones are not silver plated? And why, in fact, many models aren't even offered with the option of silver plate? I'm puzzled by this, as every other brass instruument, from piccolo trumpet to Bb bass, can be had in silver plate - so why are trombones the excep...

Jgittleson wrote: ↑

Sun Jul 22, 2018 5:07 pm

Its very superficial, i scotchbrited it off already.

Then any competent repairman will have no trouble sorting out the other damage for you!

@Kingfan - you say you're now retired, so even if you took early retirement, you've still reached the age where muscle tone tends to fade, and be much harder to get back than when you were in your teens and 20s. If that sounds like 'the voice of experience', it is; I didn't start playing any brass i...

Re. the post from 2bobone; the way I always stuck rubber hand grips onto my bikes was to use a little water with ordinary hand soap to lubricate the inside of the grip, then twist it on. If it still felt a bit loose, I'd pull it off, wipe some of the mix off and try again, and keep doing that until ...

Re. the creases and dents; they are definitely fixable. If you look at some of the repair jobs shown on YouTube, pro repairers are shown sorting out damage which looks like the instrument had been kicked down a long flight of stone stairs - yet they get it looking as good as new. What would concern ...

The story so far; the acetone didn't have the slightest effect on the lacquer, so I ordered up some '0000' grade steel wool from Liberon - a specialist firm which supplies people like cabinet makers and french polishers. Slow work, but it does gradually get through the lacquer. Though it obviously l...

I'm not having much success with uploading pictures, but I'll try for another one - taken with my camera, not just my phone - to show the extent of the problem further down the bell. The white gunge on the right is the (useless) paint stripper; the pale green streaks are not out of focus - they star...

The latest is that I tried my paint stripper, following the instructions to the letter (give it a complete coat, leave for one hour, then another coat, and another hour) - and it didn't so much as raise the tiniest bubble. I then read up on a product called Nitromors - which used to be capable of sh...

Thanks for the warning, Bruce - though I doubt I could buy anything that lethal in a regular hardware store in England; it would probably only be available to trade buyers. I downloaded the Material Safety Data Sheet for the one I have, and there's no Methylene Chloride in it. Re. the hot water; tha...

UPDATE I've tried using various grades of metal polish - none of which had the slightest effect, not even Brasso, which is the toughest one I have. On closer investigation, it turns out that the problem is the same as I had on my Harley; the corrosion (which probably started from minute nicks and pi...

Yamaha has a product, simply called "Metal polish". It is very similar to Brasso, but I'm told it's even finer. It doesn't scratch the metal at all - in fact I use it to polish my raw brass inner slide when it's too oxidized. Le Tromboniste - thank you for that suggestion; judging by the way it's w...

My apologies, Gary - I didn't make myself clear; having watched videos of pro repair techies at work, I can see that though the tools of their trade look almost primitively simple, you need a shedload of skill to use them without doing more harm than good. So if I ever decide to get a dent taken out...

Further to my post, above, I just tried holding my arm and hand in the position shown in Doug Yeo's second photo, and then swivelling my thumb round to the the same side as my cheek - with my right hand gently holding my left wrist. Sure enough, when I moved my thumb round to the same side as my ind...

I have the opposite problem to Gary - hands like shovels! Funnily enough, most people look at them and say "But they aren't big!" - yet the only gloves I can get to fit are extra large, and when I was working for a shoeing smith many years ago, I had to make my own hammer handles out of ash, because...

One thing you could try on the "pits" is a corrosion wadding. We have a brand here in the States called Nevr-Dull. You will probably find something similar in an auto parts store in your area. It's a cotton wad with a chemical that dissolves tarnish. You may find it doesn't do too much damage to th...

There is no need to "polish the brass and keep it that way" unless you require it to be shiny. Raw brass will acquire a patina that many find attractive, and that some feel contributes to a distinctive sound quality. Um - the trouble is, all the instruments in the brass band I play with are shiny; ...

I've just bought a Bach Selmer tenor trombone, which seems in good nick mechanically; as far as appearance goes, it looks like it's got a severe case of measles, where the lacquer has flaked off, and the brass underneath has slightly corroded. (I've not posted an attachment on here before, but I'll ...

I'm more worried about the lazy kid who thinks that it's too much work to try to sound nice and it's easy to sound like a moose in heat and therefore that's his "sound" and so there! So would I be, Bruce - but, if you read my posts, that's not what I'm suggesting at all; nor, in my opinion, was the...

Bruce - I'm not suggesting for one moment that any learner should be encouraged to "adopt an off-the-wall sound"; far from it. But I see no reason why a learner should not be encouraged, right from the start, to think about the sound they make, and to think about what they want to aim for. And if th...

What I remembered from engineering classes (and that's several decades back, so it's vague) was the opposite, that the zinc in brass was more likely to be attacked in alkaline environments. Timothy - in the write up on the site you linked to, it says this: "No significant calcium (calcium carbonate...

Sullivan’s tone and interpretation are of an older time that valued adherence to the written page (no extended “screeches”), and a tone quality favoring the upper harmonics, which tend to produce a “livelier,” or “brighter” tone. It seems to me that you're suggesting that players of Sullivan's era ...

Wow! Some of the above really brings home just how fortunate we are in England. Where I live, there are about forty bands, ranging from top-level pro to entry-level bands, within about 20 miles!

In other news. I think it's time to admit I've burnt out on being a musician. Don't feel obligated to respond or convince me otherwise or anything, I'm just thinking out loud. Kind of wish this really were a bar, I feel like this is something to be discussed over a beer. Yep - been there, done that...

Is there a 'too early'? I'm bearing in mind the OP's point - that he was thinking in terms of a personal sound (and not so much a 'good' sound. I'm not a teacher, and - as my username suggests - I play baritone horn, not trombone; this is totally a personal point of view, and I'm throwing it into th...