TubaForum.net

Didn't want to hijack bloke's post, but the comment about Protectaclear got me going.

My horn (HORN, not "instrument you blow in,") is unlacquered. It is tarnished, has what appears to actually be rust in places, and has one spot of red rot on one of the slides, which eventually is going to be a hole. When I have had it ultra-sound cleaned, it comes back looking like it was polished, which surprised me the first time. The gold brass horn closely matches the lacquered ambronze bell, for a few weeks.

Since I know nothing about Protectaclear except what I found online -- can that be applied to an unlacquered instrument as "protection" after it is cleaned, and have it maintain its appearance but not have a noticeable effect on the sound? (Reference to lacquer and sound: Walter Lawson did as close to a scientific experiment as can be done with a human player; he recorded the frequency spectrum of an unlacquered horn, lacquered it, and recorded the frequency spectrum again. His conclusion was that some of the high frequencies were attenuated by the lacquer, but on a horn (HORN again) -- all that had to occur was a slight opening of the right hand. My horn's intonation is SO good that I rarely have to do anything with my right hand unless I'm trying to match the bell on my left in a unison and we don't "agree" on the pitch of that note. I *always* opt for no beats.

Oh and just for the record, I'm not one of these people whose acidic sweat eats through lacquer and brass and turns green from holding an unlacquered bell. Never had that problem, can't imagine what those people eat, but I digress.

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I saw there’s a spray can version too.

I recall Walter Lawson using the term “ambronze“ to describe some of his bells. The overwhelming majority of hits for that term on search engines directs one to musical instruments, but there’s no specific identification of the alloy on any site that offers metals for sale. I found one hit for “ambronze 413“ that describes it as being a good material to make springs for electrical connections… perhaps when used in switches or battery connections…??

“Gold brass“ (usually: “low brass” - which is 80% copper and 20% zinc…an alloy so high in copper that it doesn’t require a “copper strike” coating for plating) does closely resemble the appearance of (copper/tin) bronze. (Quite a few decades ago C, G. Conn used “low brass“ to manufacture instruments that were scheduled to be silver plated… so when someone has an old lacquered Conn instrument which is low brass, someone has previously stripped the silver plating off of it and refinished it.(

I did see one place where someone identified “ambronze” as 84% copper, 14% zinc, and 2% tin.
Myself? I’m no metallurgist, but I would tend to label that a (very high copper) brass alloy…
… and it’s no surprise to me that something that’s roughly 85/15 would look pretty similar to something that’s 80/20. I would doubt that either of those two alloys would have any propensity to red rot.

As many people have read (and are surely tired of reading), I shoot negligible-cost (not marketed as “valve“) oil through any brass instrument prior to playing it. I’ve never been a person who red rots yellow brass instruments, but I’ve never given any of my (yellow brass) instruments a chance to form lime on their interior surfaces.

As far as higher copper, lower copper, lacquer, and silver coatings are concerned…
… i’ve only very rarely had opportunities to compare same model instruments with different finishes, but - on those rare occasions – I have always chosen less copper over more, and lacquer coating over a silver coating… and I do really like the looks of silver plated instruments as well as gold brass instruments, so it’s not any sort of apparent bias. Mostly, I believe that this just previous sentence is just about 100% meaningless and anecdotal.

As to the original inquiry and thread – from which this thread is an offshoot, there probably isn’t anything that can be applied to the interior of tuning slide bows which is absolutely reliable - as far as adherence, because even interior plating can become un-adhered.

bloke wrote: ↑Sun Jun 12, 2022 12:14 pm … and I do really like the looks of silver plated instruments as well as gold brass instruments, so it’s not any sort of apparent bias.

You could be circumstantially affected by those biases, though. Suppose they cause those instruments to be taken out of the market faster, so the examples to be found were the ones that weren't so desirable for other reasons. The lacquered yellow brass stock won't have been picked over as hard.

Prior to the internet, there weren't very many gold brass (1970's - early 1980's) pre-Perantucci B&S Symphonie F tubas in the USA.
Once Dan and Custom found out how good they were (much like Selmer, Paris saxophones) they began messing them up by (of course!) making them bigger.

They were dirt cheap, and the importers (Giardinelli et al) were picking the cheapest ones to import (5 valves, yellow brass).
I was in Chicago around 1993 or so. Some young man had THREE B&S Symphonie F tubas at his apartment - from which he was going to chose one to buy (if you can believe that). Not only that unlikely circumstance, but there was a gold-brass one, a lacquered yellow-brass one, and a silver plated (I would assume) yellow-brass one. He asked me to play them, and I chose the yellow-brass one. The gold-brass one (somehow) sounded "smoother", but required more effort to create the same amount of sound. He preferred the gold-brass one. I figured he was lucky, since it was there and he like it the best. me...?? I already had one, and I liked mine (which I bought brand-new/blind/4+2 configuration - which was a surprise/no choosing/no approval/no return).

The worst Miraphone model 188 I ever played was one that I bought blind/no-return...a gold-brass "Anniversary Model" (the year those things were introduced in gold-brass) one. It was pretty bad. Every other 188 I've played (all yellow brass) have been better... Obviously, that's extremely non-scientific and very anecdotal. This stuff is not-at-all able to have the scientific method applied to it...but (I guess...who cares?) "scientists" have abandoned that method (in favor of narratives, etc.) anyway.

I've also observed that most people who play for a significant part of their livelihood...It just doesn't occur to them to special order some model of instrument in gold brass...well college teachers, but (ok...I could dig a hole for myself, here) nevermind.

gold brass and nickel silver:
I like those materials used on parts of instruments that are likely to collect lime deposits.