Posted by Jay Bertolet on July 25, 2000 at 11:21:45:
In Reply to: long-term instrument storage posted by D. Seebaugh on July 25, 2000 at 08:01:59:
I like Bob's suggestion of having the horn professionally cleaned prior to storage. I just had two of my horns cleaned out and I asked the technician some questions about this very subject. He told me that the most important thing in storing an instrument is getting ALL of the water out of it. When the water is allowed to pool in any area of the instrument, that is when the damage can occur. I have this same problem with some of my tubas because they sometimes sit for over 1 month without being used and the same kind of problems happen even in that short a period of time. The technician suggested the following procedure for dealing with this:
First, empty the water out of the tuba when you stop playing it. Then wait a couple hours and go back and empty the horn again. Then try to store the instument someplace dry and leave it there for a few days without playing it. When you're relatively sure the tuba is very dry, oil the valves and grease the slides. After that, store the horn where you're going to store it. Pick a spot that is as dry as possible. Also, after you have oiled and greased the horn, don't play it again until you are ready to take the horn out of storage or repeat this procedure. One of the most vulnerable spots on the horn is the leadpipe and you can protect your leadpipe by cleaning it out, using a good trombone snake*, and then pouring valve oil into the leadpipe and sloshing it around a bit. This will coat the leadpipe and helps prevent redrot, the process that removes Zinc from the leadpipe and causes the brass to become brittle and fragile. When you oil the valves, be very sure to oil both the top and bottom bearings (assuming you have a rotary valve horn) in addition to your normal procedure.
Best of luck to you at graduate school and for a speedy return to the horn!
*By the way, why is it that nobody makes a decent tuba snake? I am so annoyed about this, trombone snakes always seem too small and inadequate to the task of cleaning my leadpipe. Anybody have a line on a bigger, wider snake, one designed for the bore of the tuba?