Stripping lacquer

[daniel76309]

I try to keep my old Besson pretty clean, but decided today to do a flush out and try out my new "snake" to run through all of the tubing. While I was at it, I tried a little copper cream I had on the tuning slides. You can see in the first picture kind of a dramatic difference with getting the old tarnish off. Unfortunately (or fortunately) this stuff also removes the lacquer if you work at it long enough. "Just for fun" I tried it on the main horn also, but confined it to an area where the lacquer was already damaged and partially stripped off (I think this occurred from a mishap at a repair shop years ago). Anyway, the area I polished (on the bell near the leadpipe) in my opinion looks way better than the old dark lacquer. However, it would be a LOT of work to do the whole instrument this way. I have two questions...

What is the preferred, or "easier" way of stripping lacquer?

Is it a bad idea to keep going and do the whole instrument this way? I.e. what are the down sides to having it all be unlacquered? (I assume it will tarnish and need period re-polishing, but anything other than that? Even tarnished I woudn't think it would look a lot worse than it does now.)

[fmanola]

As to your "how to" question, in addition to the answers you get here, I'd suggest you look on TubeNet. There have been a number of threads over the years on this subject and, of course, since most tubas are bigger than euphoniums, tubists are really interested in "easy".

[davewerden]

Looking at TubeNet is a good idea. Either there or here (or both), the topic has been discussed regarding the health aspects of playing a bare brass horn. Some people have reactions to the bare brass, and I know I've heard that using a bare mouthpiece is an absolute no-no.

But to add to the discussion, in college I had an old Besson that had not received much care over the years. I decided it was way overdue for a thorough cleaning inside, so I filled the bathtub with hot water and soaked the horn while I went outside to putter around for 45 minutes or so. When I came back in there was a LOT of lacquer floating in the tub! Just something to think about.

[daniel76309]

Thanks for the replies.

I will look into the health aspects--something I had not considered. I am assuming you mean allergic reaction or contact dermatitis.

I do know that the lacquer on my horn is a little more tenacious than that. I also have soaked in water, but with no effect, and today tried acetone in one area and it didn't seem to do much to it.

[RickF]

I found a discussion thread on TubeNet about removing lacquer.

http://forums.chisham.com/viewtopic.php?p=411976#p411976

[Anson]

I can personally attest to de-lacquered mouthpieces being a bad idea. Back in Guam, I didn't have access to a new mouthpiece, and I wanted to use a specific size, but it had some bare brass showing through.

Within about half an hour, I had and odd tingling on my lips - and not from just normal playing. Within an hour my lips were turning red and very sore. I stopped playing, and my lips stayed like that for the rest of the day and I couldn't play comfortably again for another day or two.

As for HOT water, some older horns have less resilient lacquer and can certainly "melt" off. Most modern lacquers are epoxy based I believe, and should be okay in hot water. Any lacquer experts here to confirm this?

[Euphearted]

I can second Dave's experience. Way back in 9th grade I soaked the 30I in a tub of hot water to clean it; and when I went back to check on it, I had a bare brass horn. My dad decided we should send the Conn to Elkhart for cleaning, but without receiving any suggestion from us that they should do so Conn relaquered the horn (but left in the dents). To their everlasting credit, Conn returned to us a clean 30I without charging us for the lacquer job.

[daruby]

The older lacquer on the Besson horns is a nitro-cellulose lacquer which cannot be used anymore due to OSHA style restrictions. As far as I know all of the newer lacquers are much harder and are epoxy based (or something like that). I know that the lacquer on my old Besson would melt off when I used bug spray during summer concerts!

[daniel76309]

Thanks for the additional information! I'm thinking I may leave it as is for now, especially if there may be health concerns.

Just for consideration, does anyone have an idea how big of a deal it would be (and approximate cost) for an instrument repair shop to strip and properly relacquer?

[Euphearted]

Probably you will have to address this question to particular shops, like Dillon perhaps. My "local" shop, Gadsden (AL) Music, has very friendly very helpful horn techs, but except for minor, quick-turnaround jobs they don't go in for complicated work. After all, their primary mission is to quickly get the instruments back into the school band programs. For the harder stuff, I am fortunate to have Capitol Music two hours south of me in Montgomery and Southeastern Music ninety minutes north in Huntsville. Capitol has been under the same ownership since 1954. Southeastern trued the second-valve casing on my 1922 Holton Revelation, thereby making the horn playable. Both of these have shops capable of creating missing parts, so I expect they can handle a strip and relacquer.

[daniel76309]

Interesting that you mentioned Southeastern Music...

I contacted Schmidt's Music in Pensacola (about 60 miles from me) because they had been recommended to me for another repair. It sounds as if they are more geared for minor repairs also, and they recommended Southeastern Music in Huntsville for a proper strip and relacquer procedure. Unfortunately that is 350 miles away, so it would mean shipping, and I don't know that I want to do that.

As an experiment, I soaked the smallest tuning slide in a bucket of hot soapy water (well, it was hot to begin with) overnight to see if the lacquer would dissolve (at least half of it was already gone because my hand rests there while playing). However, the lacquer that was still there was not affected at all by the soak. So, whatever lacquer finish I have is more tenacious than expected.

[bbocaner]

There are lots of french horn players who play on exclusively unlacquered instruments. I've got a bunch of instruments that are bare brass, and they never bother me. I understand that there are some people who are bothered by it, but it's not a huge deal. It does make your hands smell a little funny. Some people will tell you that it'll turn your shirt black, but my experience is that the brass tends to do this for a week or so after you've polished it and then once it starts getting a patina it's more stable and it's not going to stain anything.

My thought is that an instrument that has only partial lacquer looks really bad. Having a uniform unlacquered finish can look really nice! You might as well take the rest off. Nitrocellulose lacquer will often come off with hot water. The finish I once stripped a bach trombone by putting it in the bathtub and bringing big spaghetti pots full of boiling water up and pouring them on, and then gently rubbing with a washcloth. Epoxy lacquer is much more durable and will not generally come off this way, you usually need some sort of chemical stripper.

Nitrocellulose is not illegal, but almost noone uses it because it's not as durable as epoxy lacquer. Bach still does use it on all their lacquered trumpets and trombones. I can wear through the lacquer on the grip points of a bach trombone in about a week, whereas a trombone with epoxy lacquer will typically take me years to go through.

I play a bare brass mouthpiece all the time on ophicleide and sackbut, it never bothers me. There is a small lead content even in contemporary brass used for machining mouthpieces, 2-3%, and there is some concern that this is perhaps a safety problem, but I don't play these instruments enough to be worried about it.

[davewerden]

I agree about the black residue that transfers to clothing. That, in my experience, is left-over polish (or metal) residue as you said.

However, I can say from experience that raw brass will leave green marks on cloth. It happened with an old trombone that had a lot of missing lacquer, when it left my shirt collars with green racing stripes. And on my marching horn in the Coast Guard there was missing lacquer that left marks on my white gloves or my bare hands (depending on the gig!).

Aside from comments I heard from some others about brass & health, I think it worthy of concern that the raw brass can discolor cloth or skin as it does.

[daniel76309]

Thank you. I think that for now anyway, given the concerns mentioned, I am probably going to leave it as is. I will just try to imagine that if Willie Nelson had a euphonium, it would probably look something like mine.

[Anson]

Thank you. I think that for now anyway, given the concerns mentioned, I am probably going to leave it as is. I will just try to imagine that if Willie Nelson had a euphonium, it would probably look something like mine.

You have smoke coming out of your bell? @_@