Synthetic valve oils

[BopEuph]

Hetman closed shop, from what I hear. Looking on Amazon, Yamaha isn't even in stock there. My local stores aren't carrying any synthetic, with the local band store having a cashier insisting that Al Cass is synthetic.

There's some other brands of synthetic oils on Amazon, including Bach, as well as a few I haven't heard of, which all sound like AliExpress garbage to me.

What synthetic valve oils is everyone using? Or am I better off going back to petroleum valve oil and sticking (heh) with that?

Or, maybe I should just get some pure lamp oil and use that from now on.

[bisontuba]

https://houghtonhorns.com/products/mein ... lubricants

[arpthark]

Hetman closed shop, from what I hear.

I heard they had been having supply chain issues back a couple years ago, but I thought their stuff was available now? Is there news on that front?

Dillon and Baltimore Brass have some varieties in stock (#2 and #3).

Just searching online, if you are dead-set on Hetman, you can find it being sold elsewhere on the internet outside of those known retailers.

[BopEuph]

It's just been the brand I've been with for so long. I wanted to stick with Amazon only because I need to get to $35 for a shipment of stuff.

Looks like Monster is a legitimate brand according to @Dan Tuba.

I heard that the supply chain issues were due to the bottles becoming prohibitively expensive, and the owner of Hetman just gave up and closed shop.

But doing a Google search shows this on TubeNet: http://forums.chisham.com/viewtopic.php?t=101061

Apparently they're changing bottles and production has slowed down while they're figuring out the new line.

While there, apparently a lot of players who use Hetman experience more green buildup than others, and a change in valve oil fixed that problem; so maybe it IS worth a change.

[BRS]

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[Lch3]

Been using Resilience valve oil - light - for several years and very pleased.

https://www.resilienceoils.com/products

[LeMark]

i've been a alisyn guy for years.

[DonO.]

I have been using Bach Synthetic for a few years now. I think it does a great job. My reason for picking it is that Conn Selmer probably used it on my instrument before shipping it. The case papers state that synthetic lubricants were used at the factory and after all it is their brand. They also sell Conn Synthetic and it’s probably the same stuff. They recently started selling Bach Synthetic +. What the plus stands for I have no clue! I believe it works very well. My only complaint is that it does evaporate quickly. You have to oil every day, so it’s not the oil for you if you like to skip days. But you shouldn’t do that anyway!

[tylerferris1213]

My business trialed an assortment of BERP oils recently and we've had huge success. I was especially interested in BERP because, along with their regular viscosity oils, they make a super viscous one for instruments with worn valves. Seeing as my shop works on a lot of vintage instruments, this stuff has been wonderful.

[arpthark]

I am not at all picky about valve oil -- I use whatever half-empty oil came with tubas I've bought and sold -- but the worst experience I've had with valve oil has been with berp "bio-oil" (first iteration, released in 2008 or 2009-ish?).

It is canola oil based, and went rancid over one summer in my tuba. Basically polymerized and stunk to high heaven. I was pulling little green rubbery rings out of my valves that had congealed around all the ports. I had to get the horn chem cleaned. I say this as someone who has never had problems with "gunk" in tubas (body chemistry or whatever), but that stuff was horrible. I think they reformulated it.

Since then, I've just used whatever has been handy. Al Cass, Blue Juice, whatever. As long as the tuba is clean, I've never had any issues. I use lamp oil for tubas I work on in my humble home-repair-hack shop, but that's about it and only haven't used it in tubas in the house because my old bottles of Al Cass haven't run out yet.

Does anyone remember ZAJA scented valve oil? Man, that was all the rage when I was in college. It was so fancy! I tried to make my own with lamp oil and essential oils from a craft store. Not quite as fancy.

[bloke]

Dissolve hard lime from articulating surfaces, clean the ports and elbows which feed into the valve casings, and the clean the tubing which passes through the valves themselves, as well as the bottom caps, and use whatever "valve oil" is on hand. If synthetic is the personal choice, use that (and likely there will be no issues mixing it with others - as long as the previous things have all been thoroughly addressed). I might personally avoid anything organic, unless someone - who absolutely knows their stuff - were to completely convince me that it wouldn't behave as do vegetable oils - which I've seen turn to glue, over time (and which - btw - are not effectively dissolved with distillates).

bloke "I realize that's a really long brand name for oil, and we have trouble fitting onto the tiny little bottles."

[arpthark]

Dissolve hard lime from articulating surfaces, clean the ports and elbows which feed into the valve casings, and the clean the tubing which passes through the valves themselves, as well as the bottom caps, and use whatever "valve oil" is on hand. If synthetic is the personal choice, use that (and likely there will be no issues mixing it with others - as long as the previous things have all been thoroughly addressed). I might personally avoid anything organic, unless someone - who absolutely knows their stuff - were to completely convince me that it wouldn't behave as do vegetable oils - which I've seen turn to glue, over time (and which - btw - are not effectively dissolved with distillates).

bloke "I realize that's a really long brand name for oil, and we have trouble fitting onto the tiny little bottles."

[Sousaswag]

I like Resilience, Monster, or Ultra Pure. I have varieties of each.

[Kevbach33]

Depends. I use Ultra Pure (regular) on my piston instruments. It came with the JP euphonium and works well with it, so I figured it would also work well with the Wessex Bombino I bought recently (it does but not as well as on the JP, probably due to tolerances).

As an aside, the Wessex had some generic valve oil stuck in the body that affected how it blew. Haven't used it yet since it fell out.

I just use the Holton rotary oil (conventional, using car oil terms) for the rotor bodies on all my rotor horns (2 trombones and the F. Schmidt BBb), Yamaha spindle oil on the tuba and Getzen Eterna bass bone, Hetman #14 for Getzen linkages and the bearings on the Holton 168 tenor, and Hetman ball joint (#15) for the tuba linkages (yep, those that some folks despise).

[BopEuph]

Dissolve hard lime from articulating surfaces, clean the ports and elbows which feed into the valve casings, and the clean the tubing which passes through the valves themselves, as well as the bottom caps, and use whatever "valve oil" is on hand. If synthetic is the personal choice, use that (and likely there will be no issues mixing it with others - as long as the previous things have all been thoroughly addressed). I might personally avoid anything organic, unless someone - who absolutely knows their stuff - were to completely convince me that it wouldn't behave as do vegetable oils - which I've seen turn to glue, over time (and which - btw - are not effectively dissolved with distillates).

bloke "I realize that's a really long brand name for oil, and we have trouble fitting onto the tiny little bottles."

If I can only get synthetic valve oil by ordering online, it might behoove me to switch back to petroleum for when I'm in a bind. I just don't want to have to clean all my horns to make the switch!

[BRS]

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[bloke]

- ...have to clean all my horns to make the switch...

- Arnold Jacobs had only one lung.

- The same instrument - with a lacquer finish vs. a silver plated finish - is going to sound smell different. (Fixed this one!)

- Tubas in gig bags won't ever slide around in the backs of cars.

- The secret to York tubas was a secret formula metal that "Pops" Johnson specified for his instruments.

- Piston-valved F tubas sound different from rotary-valved F tubas, primarily because of the pistons.

- Communism could work, and the reason that it's never worked in the past is only because ________________________________________.

[Mary Ann]

Alisyn here. Hetmen goo-d up my valves. Alisyn works extremely well on both rotors and valves. I use so little overall that I don't mind paying for it. If I use petroleum on pistons, I have to do it all the time. If I use Alisyn I can do it once a week.

[Pauvog1]

I switched to Monster Oils about 2 years ago from Hetmans and never looked back.

[Wally]

- ...have to clean all my horns to make the switch...

- Arnold Jacobs had only one lung.

- The same instrument - with a lacquer finish vs. a silver plated finish - is going to sound smell different. (Fixed this one!)

- Tubas in gig bags won't ever slide around in the backs of cars.

- The secret to York tubas was a secret formula metal that "Pops" Johnson specified for his instruments.

- Piston-valved F tubas sound different from rotary-valved F tubas, primarily because of the pistons.

- Communism could work, and the reason that it's never worked in the past is only because ________________________________________.

Wow! I've been saying these things all along--so glad you finally confirmed them!!