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A whole bunch of instruments that come in here feature a layer of slime coating piston and rotor inner ports as well as the knuckles that feed into the valve casings, as well as the mouthpipe tube.

I've actually had people come to me whose instruments were making a fluttering sound - whereby one of those nasty scum coatings was flapping around when the person played certain pitches on their instrument.

Removal of that nasty mess increases the stability of the capillary portion (mouthpipe and valves) of a tuba, and (as higher and higher pitches become closer and closer together in distance) bore stability WILL LIKELY increase the chances of producing the correct pitch (sure: assuming player ability, and the pitch being in the player's "ear").

bloke "mechanical predictability"

I noticed that, since I play a lot of beer drinking gigs, I am always cleaning the sousaphones to avoid sticking valves... as a consequence that gunk doesn't build up and I sound better. I started the simple practice of brushing my teeth before playing my concert tuba. I also have been taking it to get Chem cleaned and serviced every two years... because I don't want to take apart rotary valves on the regular.

I am convinced that many developing problems can be addressed with simple oral hygiene.

I do the same, but that stuff still forms in there due to it being a dark and humid environment. (I suspect that the only hope of preventing it would be to jet air through an instrument for two or three minutes minimum while wiggling all the valves and attempting to completely dry it out inside before putting it away, and we're not going to do that, because we don't have a compressor and a hose and it would be ridiculous.)
I chem-clean other people's instruments, because when they come to me it's a little bit late too do anything less, but what I do with mine - as a stopgap and to avoid chem clean jobs - is to jet hot water through them with the main tuning slide removed, and wiggle the valves a lot while I'm doing it. It doesn't get everything, but it gets a lot of that stuff and leaves the brass and nickel brass oxide patina (which I view as not harmful and probably beneficial) inside the instrument.

I find that (what everyone claims to do which is to) "giving an instrument a bath" (and nothing but water, some sort of detergent and no water velocity nor raised temperature) to be - pretty much - useless.

Notice that I rated what I do as a "stopgap". As long as I do that and oil the hell out of my instruments every time I play them, I'm not going to find lime deposits in them and every so often I can completely take them apart and just scrub off what little bit of scum coatings I find here and there, without using any sort of cleanser or chemical.

I believe Matt Good recently did what I do (after having seen me discuss this routine) and - LOL - a whole bunch of stuff got ejected.

Well... this reminds me I need to clean every horn I own. :(
What method was mentioned a few months ago - best cleaner for green lime build up? I have acquired a horn that was not played for 10-12 years. When I finally got the slides off, the brass interior was solid green.

Tim

I used to have a large tank of Chromic Acid (aka bright dip). After I had an instrument sparkling clean inside and out, I would dip the entire instrument, as well as the cleaned small parts into this solution for a few seconds, and the body & parts would come out with a hazy, bright yellow color on any raw brass. Bright-dipped parts, when dried and left undisturbed, would remain bright yellow for years, preventing any sort of corrosion. you could play a bright-dipped instrument for months (or years), and when it was brought in for cleaning, there might be a ton of gunk built up inside, but it was not stuck to the metal and corroding it away. I could clean massive numbers of school instruments in the summer, and store a number of them in an un-air-conditioned building for several weeks until it was delivery time, with no worry about the interior condition of said instruments.

Then, environmental regulations have basically ruled out their use in the USA, and I cannot clean, dry and store an instrument here in the summer for over 24 hours without being concerned about green appearing inside the valves. My solution has been to dry the instruments as thoroughly as possible, then with cheesecloth on a cleaning rod, I apply some Motorkote spray to the cheesecloth, and swab the inner- and outer slide tubes, and the valve casings. Motorkote pretty-much stays in place, is an anti-friction agent, so slides work easier, and repels water, keeping the corrosion out of your slides and valves. My experience so far over the past year indicates that build-up can be easily removed, as it can't stick to slides or valves that have been treated this way, which is good for the instrument (and the person cleaning it!). Availability of Motorkote is spotty, but I have been trying to keep the Motorkote spray, and two different-viscosity oils here to use in servicings. They have a Gun Oil that is an excellent option for ball joint linkage and traditional S-linkage as well, and Reelkote, which is a somewhat lighter viscosity. I use that on top- and bottom cap threads, so that they do not get stuck, and even not-so-great threads feel like a million bucks. So now, I've divulged one of my shop secrets, and hope that it might benefit someone. (Rotor valves feel amazing with some Motorkote spray in the casings.)

Lee, thanks -- I think I'll pass this info on to a friend who is a fine player and has several instruments including a Firebird. We played each other's instruments about a year ago, and I was astonished at how horrible the Firebird's valves were. I mean, that is not a junk tuba! So I'll tell my friend what you do, but have no idea if he will decide to utilize that info.

I don't play enough to gunk up anything badly enough that I can tell a difference between annual ultrasound cleanings.
And -- whoever said they brush their teeth, yikes, that is basic prep for playing, even if all you did was drink soda or coffee.