Breaking in a new euph: best practices
This thread hasn't had a comment in awhile, but it's apropos for me today.
A couple months ago I bought a new Virtuoso. After about 3 weeks of playing every day, it became evident that the horn needed a bath. The valves were pretty much jammed up tight from the valves breaking in.
After a soak in the bathtub and a thorough swabbing out using a couple different types of snakes, I continued to use Hetman's on it and it was fine.
But the valves continued to break in and just this past weekend I gave the horn another bath, to include thorough swabbing with the same two snakes. By this time, a bit of mold had started to grow in the bottom valve caps, even with playing every day and with storage in a way that was supposed to keep the critters out.
One of my pet peeves is oiling valves. I just don't like doing it. So I thought I'd give Binak Pro another go-round. About 10 years ago I attempted using that oil on my 967 and I never could get it to work properly, even after following the directions to the finest detail.
Jury's still out on the Binak Pro, but I will say that there may be some promise. If I can avoid oiling the valves every other time I play it, I'll be happy.
Oh, btw, at home I store the horn upright in an easy chair after practicing. That's so the little bit of water that remains after the horn cools down can condense and run down into the bow of slides, rather than pool and grow little critters on the underside of the valves if the horn is stored on the bell (I don't do that with the new horn at all.) I'd rather run a snake through a slide than have to tear apart four valves and clean them because of a science project that's growing in the horn.
U.S. Army, Retired (built mid-1950s)
Adams E2 Euph (built 2017)
Boosey & Co. Imperial Euph (built 1941)
Edwards B454 Bass Trombone (built 2012)
Boosey & Hawkes Imperial Eb tuba (built 1958)
Kanstul 33-T lBBb tuba (built 2010)