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I bought a used silver plated tuba a few months ago. The previous owner had just had it professionally cleaned and supposedly polished. He wasn't pleased with the results, but I wasn't buying it for looks. It still had some dark cloudy bits here and there, but I thought, "well, it's silver."

Recently, the tarnishing has gotten more pronounced, but the odd thing is that the tarnished areas have a definite gold-ish hue. The horn is about 50 years old, and I can imagine it has been polished with silver remover dozens of times over the years. So, is what I'm seeing the brass peeking through where the silver has been polished away?

Recommendations?

So I have a 1936 king, silver plate. The last time I used a cream polish on it (1998ish) I had the same issue. I haven't used a cream polish since. The horn went into storage when I went to college. I just took it out of storage last year. Instead I use the cotton cloths that are treated with some kind of anti tarnish stuff. There's no mess, they work fairly well.

The horn went into storage when I went to college. I just took it out of storage last year (that's 23 years storage) and I would describe it as being mildly tarnished all over. It needed to be cleaned so I thought I would give the cloths a try. First I washed it in a utility sink with mild dish soap and a cotton washcloth. Always use cool water, hot can cause problems with the plating. I think the polishing cloths came 3 in the package. I cut one in half for larger areas and one into 3 strips for the valve tubing. I think it cleaned up as well as can be expected of a 80+ year old tuba. And I didn't see any silver transfer onto the cloths like I did with the cream polish.

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Before.

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After

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This is precisely why I don’t like silver plated horns. Your first instinct was correct. It IS brass peeking through. Silver plate is much thinner than most people realize, and the vast majority of silver “polishes” remove material each time you use them, either through abrasion or chemically. Honestly, it doesn’t even take that many polish sessions for this to start happening.

Also, the body chemistry of the player has something to do with it. I have a friend who has a Darryl Smith Kalison, silver plate, that he bought brand new some 20 years ago. He has never polished it but there are many places with raw brass showing, mostly places he habitually touches it. He claims it’s something about his body chemistry. He has looked into having the silver stripped off and having the horn lacquered, local shop said $8000. This is substantially more than re-lacquering a lacquered horn because the silver is much harder to strip than lacquer is. Since this exceeds the value of the tuba by 2-3 thousand, this is a non starter for him. He simply says that if he ever buys another tuba, it will be lacquer for sure.

DonO. wrote: ↑Tue Sep 12, 2023 6:35 am This is precisely why I don’t like silver plated horns. Your first instinct was correct. It IS brass peeking through. Silver plate is much thinner than most people realize, and the vast majority of silver “polishes” remove material each time you use them, either through abrasion or chemically. Honestly, it doesn’t even take that many polish sessions for this to start happening.

Also, the body chemistry of the player has something to do with it. I have a friend who has a Darryl Smith Kalison, silver plate, that he bought brand new some 20 years ago. He has never polished it but there are many places with raw brass showing, mostly places he habitually touches it. He claims it’s something about his body chemistry. He has looked into having the silver stripped off and having the horn lacquered, local shop said $8000. This is substantially more than re-lacquering a lacquered horn because the silver is much harder to strip than lacquer is. Since this exceeds the value of the tuba by 2-3 thousand, this is a non starter for him. He simply says that if he ever buys another tuba, it will be lacquer for sure.

Those old Kalisons are pretty notorious for having really thin silver plate.

It's so interesting how body chemistry effects things like that. I had a 1996 PT-6 that was bought new by a person in a premiere band and used professionally until I bought it in 2011 -- so 15 years of near-daily use and heavy practice, with absolutely no silver wear at all. I owned it for about another 4 or 5 years, so that many years of heavy use and daily practice, and when I sold it (and I think @Doug can attest) it definitely did not look like a 20 year old, professionally-used for most of its lifespan, tuba. Same story with my lacquered F tuba, no wear at all. However, my friend bought a new tuba (lacquer) and within a couple months the lacquer had already been eaten away where his arm rested and where he held the outer branches.

Silver plated tubas are great. My only issue is that, being big and shiny, they also make YOU look more serious, and that you know what you're doing... higher expectations from the conductor. Whereas a nice brown patina on raw brass gives the opposite reaction, like "hey, that thing sounds pretty good!"

My 1922 Martin Eb has a little silver wear here and there, but really not very much at all. Same with the 1917(?) Monster Eb. I think the plating they used back in the day was a whole lot thicker. I do wonder if that was to be fancier, or if they just didn't have great technology yet for "thin." Only bad thing is that the Satin silver finish seems to smooth out over time -- partially from polishing. Still very pretty, but must've been pretty dramatic when brand new.

The Getzen G50 notoriously had thin silver plating... you almost always see plating wear on the bell where your right arm rests.

The Willson 3050rz that I owned had zero plating wear, even at contact points... only messy spot or two was where some work had been done to move/replace valve linkages. That thing was a tank, and a very shiny tank at that.

The Alex 163 that I owned had been replaced by Anderson, and Lee Stofer said it they did an exquisite job of it, plating inside and out (is that a thing?). The tuba must not have been used heavily after that plating was done, because it looked almost new. Gorgeous. I miss that tuba, goofy leadpipe and all.

Some day I'd love to own a silver Miraphone 188.

It all depends on who owns that horn. If your sweat is acidic, my understanding is that it will indeed eat through the silver or lacquer.

You might be able to mitigate that by spraying it down with a degreaser after each play session.

My silver plated horns have all been pristine. I don’t play all that often anymore but each time I do, I habitually wipe my horn(s) down. Nothing that I’ve owned has ever gained more wear that it already had. Same with my few lacquered horns.

My F tuba has had a bunch of work done to it but it does look like somebody’s chemistry has eaten through the silver on the bell where your forearm rests. I find that quite strange on a Willson.

With really old American instruments that are silver plated, I can buff solder off solder joints without going through the silver, and we all know good and well that that same silver plating has been polished endless times in the past before me buffing against it.

Old ads for King advertised a "thick triple silver plating" or some such.

arpthark wrote: ↑Tue Sep 12, 2023 8:16 am Old ads for King advertised a "thick triple silver plating" or some such.

Martin listed theirs as "quadruple silverplate". You could also order quadruple gold plate, quadruple silver-plated. Even 100 years ago, it added quite a bit to the price... in today's dollars, my medium Eb (silverplate) would be amount $3700, and the gold plate about $5300. Either tuba, if actually built today, would be considerably more expensive today, to the point where yeah right, they're not going to make that!

With that much silver - assuming there ends up being one and a half thousandths of an inch or even more silver on an instrument, there are things that have to be done to an instrument that do not have to be done to an instrument which only receives about 4/10 of a thousandth of an inch of plating.

I remember reading (maybe bloke?) some of the old American horns were so heavily plated that they didn't even finish the brass under the silver. The silver was heavy enough to just buff shiny after the fact.

My YEP-321 is silver with lacquer. Or maybe it’s nickel silver. Either way, it always looks good with no effort from me.

likely, none of those.

Most likely it's silver plating, which is kept clean and in a good environment.
If you're in south Texas (??) you may not be using much gas heat, the lack of which is also friendly to silver plating.

I appreciate all the comments and suggestions. Skin chemistry is probably a factor, because I know what my chemistry has done to my Wessex lacquered euphonium. But the worst brass emergence percolating through the silver tuba is on the bell. And if someone is going to attack a horn with silver stripper, the bell is the prime target.

I've used paste wax on my 100+ year-old tuba that only has traces of lacquer remaining. Maybe I'll try it on the new one (50+ years), to protect what remains of the silver.

acemorgan wrote: ↑Tue Sep 12, 2023 1:39 pm I appreciate all the comments and suggestions. Skin chemistry is probably a factor, because I know what my chemistry has done to my Wessex lacquered euphonium. But the worst brass emergence percolating through the silver tuba is on the bell. And if someone is going to attack a horn with silver stripper, the bell is the prime target.

I've used paste wax on my 100+ year-old tuba that only has traces of lacquer remaining. Maybe I'll try it on the new one (50+ years), to protect what remains of the silver.

Do you have a pic of the current state of the bell?

Bell condition:

To my untutored eye, that's tarnish on top of silver. Technically, a thin layer of silver sulfide, Ag2S. When you might first start to notice it, at about 10nm, it will be a faint yellow discoloration, and here it has gone past that to (as I see it in the photo) a reddish color - the sulfide is colorless, or black, and colors are a light wave interference effect, hence depending on very small differences in thickness.

That just looks like regular silver tarnish to me.