I've been shadowing this forum for quite some time, but have never had to make an account due to the thorough coverage of everything I have needed. My current question though, does not seem to have been addressed.
We installed a water softening system a few years back, and fearing the effects of water with elevated sodium, I kissed the days of bathing my horn goodbye. This wasn't the end of cleaning, mind you. With the water softener we installed a reverse osmosis system. So, I replaced euphonium baths with regularly pushing a cup of RO water through my horn, and taking more frequent trips to my tech for an ultrasonic cleaning.
I have been asking around for ages whether softened water should have an effect on my horn, and all I ever got were answers like "I'm not sure, but I really doubt it." So when I got my brand new Adams E1, I decided to take no chances, and stuck to this regimen without problems.
But after a few years, I was dumb and decided that since I was overdue for a cleaning, and wouldn't have access to my tech for a month, I would just go for it. I had regrets after I finished, and decided to thoroughly flush out the inside with RO water.
Not a month later, I noticed a few tiny pink dots on some of the tubing. I raised my eyebrows, but a small amount of research didn't lead me to any knowledge of what it was or why it occurred. A few days later the spots were clearly larger than before. Now getting scared I did some more thorough research, and learned about what is called red rot. There seems to be very limited photographic resources on red rot though, and almost all of it is extreme red rot, which didn't seem to resemble the mysterious pink dots much if at all. The only things I knew were that they are under the lacquer, and that the few that were near points where I could view the inside of the tubing beneath them, had no red spot that I could see on the inside.
More days have passed and they are getting larger. I keep flushing the reverse osmosis water through, hoping to stop whatever is happening, but it will not relent. As the spots get bigger, and more appear I am getting extremely concerned. It will be about half a week now until I can get to a reputable tech, but I understandably do not want to wait. My concerns are only rising as I observe that this is only taking place in the tubing made of the yellowest (or highest percentage of zinc) brass. Its primarily clustered in the hardest to reach parts of these tubes as well. Its not like I can soak the horn, because RO systems only do a small amount of water at a time, and I can't pressure wash the inside, because all of our pressurized water is softened.
I don't know what's going on, or at least just don't want to accept it. I don't really understand why either. If it is red rot, and it is in fact from the inside out, it's not at a stage where it poses immediate structural concern, but if it continues at its current growth rate, I don't think it'd be more than a couple weeks until I have a serious problem.
I'm open for whatever suggestions or thoughts anyone has. Go go go.
http://www.trumpetmaster.com/threads...uescher.74983/
The image on this page seems to most closely resemble my pink dots. Mostly like the smaller bits. And most of it is located in the second valve compensating bit of tubing, which is extremely hard to get to, and the bits of the fourth valve tubing just before and after it goes through the main valve block as per the compensating system.