Valve Oil Preferences?

[tubatodd]

What are all of the cool kids using for piston valve oil these days? I used Blue Juice and Al Cass in the 90s. I used Hetman in late 90s and 2000s. I'm back to Blue Juice....only because I have a giant bottle I bought a while back. As has always been the case with Blue Juice (for me), it doesn't last too long. That is, it needs to be reapplied pretty frequently. I'm open to trying something else.

[York-aholic]

Uh oh !

[tubatodd]

I searched the forums before posting this and couldn't find a discussion on this. Hoping to get actual feedback of what people are using and if they are happy with their choice.

[Craig F]

When Hetman became impossible to find, I switched to Meinlschmidt which they formulated to be just like Hetman.

[Sousaswag]

I’ve been using:

Monster Synthetic - Works great for all my new-condition piston horns with tight tolerances. Found it on Amazon.

Ultra Pure - Until I couldn’t find any in stock and moved to Monster

Yamaha Synthetic - Also good

Ultra Pure Black Label - For my “needs a valve job” helicon and double bell euph

But… I oil pistons daily as I play. Keeps gunk from accumulating quickly.

[arpthark]

I'm not a cool kid, but I followed bloke's advice a long time ago and bought a big jug of Ultra-Pure lamp oil (not gone rancid yet). I use it on instruments out in my shop mostly, but it tends to freeze this time of year in the unheated barn.

Inside, I have a revolving stable of whatever I scrounged from random instrument cases. Usually Al Cass or music store-stenciled (Sam Ash, etc.) stuff, but I am not at all picky. I haven't bought a bottle of valve oil in probably 15 years.

[je]

I use Ultra-Pure. Incidentally, my most recent online order arrived yesterday, and it came from an Eastman address, which is a recent change if I remember my mid-2024 order correctly.

[Pauvog1]

I like monster valve oils.

[gocsick]

I switched to BERP BioOil for all my instruments. I don't buy into the organic natural healthy aspects... but I like it because they publish all their engineering specifications including viscosity for all their products. It's worked very well for me.. but I do know some people that have had issues in the past (@arpthark).

[MiBrassFS]

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[Lch3]

Resilience Oils. Good stuff.

https://www.resilienceoils.com/

[Matt Walters]

For anyone who cares, I have reached a very strong opinion about valve lubricant. Oiled/lubricated valves work better. But that is my anecdotal observation.

[the elephant]

I just spit on 'em…

[GC]

I've tried a bunch of oils, but keep coming back to Blue Juice.

[tubatodd]

For anyone who cares, I have reached a very strong opinion about valve lubricant. Oiled/lubricated valves work better. But that is my anecdotal observation.

This checks out.

[bloke]

Since the thread began, I've switched over to whole goat's milk...raw - not past your eyes.

Seriously...I oil generously every time I play any of my instruments.
Again, I can use high velocity hot water to jet out that gross green slime, but I'm not fond of taking a tuba all the way apart to soak it in acid and dissolve scale out of it...

...That's why I charge y'all a lot to do that.

...and - all oily inside - they don't form much scale inside of 'em...

...and the "every time" and "generously"...That's why I buy oil not labeled as "valve oil" by the gallon, rather than oil labeled as "valve oil" by the ounce or two.

[BramJ]

damnit, I just got a big jug of paraffin oil and now I need to get whole goats milk...

So after reading about the BlokeMethod(tm) many times I decided to give a try, I couldn't find Ultra-Pure lamp oil around here, but since it is just paraffin oil I decided to look for that, I found a laboratory supply shop that sold pure paraffin oil in large contrainers. The jug that was delivered was actually marketed as oil used for pest control (if you have standing water somewhere you can't remove, pour the oil on it to prevents mosquito larvae to survive). It is pure paraffin, but it is thicker then I was expecting. For my rotary instruments it works great but for my piston instruments it is too thick.
I talked to a chemist, it turns out you can have many viscosities with paraffin oil, it all depends on the chain length of the hydrocarbons. I am going to try some more lamp oils to see if there is one with the right viscosity for pistons

[tubatodd]

For the record, my original post was a legit question. I was curious what products people were using and their feedback on what seems to work best for them and why. It was to educate myself on potential products I'd never heard of from people who've had a chance to try them.

I guess what I learned is that valve oil hasn't really changed much. There are new brands, old brands and the old repurposed fluids. Use what you've got. Use it regularly and more important than anything......................keep practicing.

I will go oil my valves now.

[iiipopes]

[Sigh!] The subject of this thread pops up every few years. Nothing has changed because, except for Alison and Resilience, there really have been no new valve oil manufacturers in the last few years. You will get posts from everybody who uses everything from Blue Juice to bloke purchasing lamp oil in bulk. Other posts will include each manufacturer's proprietary brands (Bach smells disgustingly like kerosene), and other popular brands, such as Al Cass, a good oil, but needs to be re-applied frequently.

I have bought and sold a fair number of brass instruments over the years, high and low. As I have taken delivery of each one over the years, each has usually had a (half used) bottle of valve oil in the case (or on the occasional new instrument, the dealer pack). So I have tried just about every valve oil out there.

THEY ALL LUBRICATE THE VALVES PROPERLY. The only question is how often you need to re-apply. Follow the time-honored protocol which bloke said in his post: every time you getting ready to engage in a significant personal practice session or ensemble rehearsal, apply a couple of drops to each valve. If it is an exceptionally long session, and something starts to slow down, reapply. All commercial valve oils will last at least this long.

If you want my personal preference, I prefer to purchase the larger bottle of Roche-Thomas and refill my case bottles with it. That is somewhere between the over-priced single bottle purchase and the bulk bottle/jug purchase. For me, Roche-Thomas lubricates the valves well. It is viscous enough that it doesn't wash away from water in the horn as quickly as some others do. It doesn't slow down the valves, and it doesn't have any adverse aroma to speak of. My last 16-ounce bottle lasted for a decade, and the current bottle will last much longer because of using up the bottles that came in the case with the horns first.

And now the drawback for most oils, with the exception of Hetman #3 classic, designed for the purpose: none of them work well on worn valves. If your valves are somewhere between good seal with conventional valve oil and needing a replate, then here is what I do: take a two-ounce conventional bottle, fill it half-full of your favorite oil, then add a drop or two or so of pharmaceutical grade mineral oil until the valve seals and intonation is secure. If you get a drop too much and the valves start slowing down, add another splash of the conventional valve oil to adjust viscosity to your instrument. I have the use of a 100-year-old sousaphone that I do that with. My Couesnon flugel came with a bottle of the Hetman #3, and that is what I use on it. For the rest of my brass, I will use up what came in the case then refill with my favorite.

[DonO.]

Late to the party but… when I started my comeback trail and bought my King 2341, the paperwork said that it came from the factory “lightly lubricated with synthetic lubricants”. Now, there doesn’t seem to be King branded synthetic valve oil, there are Conn and Bach branded synthetics, so I logically assumed that they used something very much like that, since King is also a Conn-Selmer brand. So right from the beginning I used Bach synthetic oil, and I’ve never seen any reason to change. It performs very well. My only complaint is that it seems to evaporate fairly quickly, but oiling the valves often (which should be done anyway) negates that issue. FWIW- YMMV.