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I have a tuba that was outside for a long time. I emptied about a cup of dirt out of it when I upended it.

The silver plate is really heavily tarnished, but not smooth/blue-gray-purple/iridescent -- it's nubby/rough and dark gray.

Normal polishing methods (tried Tarn-X sulfur-ish liquid, Tarnishield, and Mother's) are taking forever.

Anybody encountered something like this? Here's the tuba in question. Notice the pebbly texture on the bell stack -- that is what I am having trouble getting smooth and shiny.

The eb horn I'm working on was in similar condition. The surface texture of the tarnish is like coarse sandpaper. I've just been going at it with scotch brite pads. I'm not trying to polish the horn to a glossy shine, just clean it up. I actually like the matte look anyway. So I really dont have a better answer. I did find this webpage about removing tarnish. I think I'm going to try a modified version just to see what happens.
https://www.bobvila.com/articles/how-to-polish-silver/

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I occasionally use Tarn-X in a spray bottle. Don't leave it on too long! Rinse thoroughly.

Regular heavy duty NOT lemon scented name-brand Easy Off oven cleaner.

Tarnex is a good product, but too slow (for barn-find-thick silver oxide) and too expensive.

Quite a few years ago, I picked up a barn-hanging silver plated King Giant 3/4 inch bore sousaphone with no dents that was deep deep deep black. Easy Off did the trick.

Don't mess around with dollar store brand or lemon scented,
It won't get you where you need to go.

I wonder if that sousaphone is still in Hawaii. The buyer paid a fortune to have it shipped there... I couldn't have imagined keeping it; it sounded like an echo chamber and felt like I was carrying a motorcycle on my shoulder.

Since I told you how to get it ready to sell, I'll be waiting for my $100, once sold.

Have you had time to try anything? You haven't reported back.

bloke wrote: ↑Thu Nov 23, 2023 8:24 am Have you had time to try anything? You haven't reported back.

Yeah. Went back and forth between cooking the turkey and blasting oven cleaner all over this tuba yesterday. Occasionally I would forget which is which, but luckily the turkey ended up being free of silver tarnish, and the tuba tastes pretty good deep fried. Thanks for the tip!

Dents Be Gone! wrote: ↑Thu Nov 23, 2023 10:11 am I’ve seen enough tubas. Post a picture of the turkey.

We've hoarded several under $1 a pound turkeys from various groceries who are running that loss leader. We're not going to eat those until the dead of winter when prices on all meats are sky high. We are eating $1.69 ham, and baking it for about 7 hours so that it is better than any of those expensive hams. I posted here before about how to cook the cheap hams to make them taste better than any other.

I'm actually in my barn right now playing this thing.

This is the .750" bore King 1240 that I posted about on FB Frankentubas.

Setting my tuner to A=435 to account for the 45° temp in here, it definitely does not feature the excellent intonation that later models are known for.

Being candid: Third partial F is 15c flat, fifth partial D is about 20c flat, and sixth partial F is stinky sharp - 20-25c or so.

The first valve tubing is a bit too long --1+3 C is flat even with everything pushed in, along with all other 1st valve notes.

It sounds really nice with that .750" bore, though. Kind of an air hog, but the sound does not break up as easily as the smaller bore Kings.

Also, ham here as well.

I’ll give you $50 for it.



Seriously though, I’m assuming the outer branches are the same as a 689 bore 1240.

If that’s true, how far in do the similarities go?

In my experience, tuning does not sag arithmetically but kind of in a random way. You might find that it does much better at 70° - as far as playing in tune with itself. One of the things I really hate about winter is that we are cheapskates re: the heat - because our house is too large, and it's very difficult to practice when my house is 62° or 63°.

bloke wrote: ↑Thu Nov 23, 2023 6:19 pm In my experience, tuning does not sag arithmetically but kind of in a random way. You might find that it does much better at 70° - as far as playing in tune with itself. One of the things I really hate about winter is that we are cheapskates re: the heat - because our house is too large, and it's very difficult to practice when my house is 62° or 63°.

That's a good point. I'll wait until family is gone before I haul this ugly thing inside and try it at 68°.

Hauling it in might encourage the family to pack a little faster.

My tuba went from this

[

To this

[

With the use of Tarn-X and some off-the-shelf Hagerty's spray as far as I recall. I did it in the garage. The fumes are horrible!