Leather grips/neck guards etc.

[herrerabone]

What do you all think about leather accessories (i.e hand grips, neck guard, etc.)? Pros/cons?

[tbathras]

I've used the hand guards before - typically only on the left hand grip. I've found that neck guards (the ones I tried) would rub on the white collar of my tux shirt and stain it black, so i ditched that pretty quick. Maybe it was a poor quality one, i don't know.

Currently I don't use any at all because I like to be able to wash my slide without having to unlace/lace the hand grip every time. (I rinse my slide and pull a snake through it about once a week)

[Neo Bri]

Some say the sweat from you hands eventually soaks through and then sits on the horn, doing more damage than good. I mostly like them for grip, particularly for the left hand. I suppose you could put some kind of barrier between the horn and the grip.

[tctb]

I made some neck and hand protectors for my trombone cut from some old leather . I used stick on velcro for the fastening so that I can remove the leather for washing the horn.

[norbie2018]

I've used hand and neck guards for years with no detrimental effect to the instrument.

[Neo Bri]

I've used hand and neck guards for years with no detrimental effect to the instrument.

Me, too.

I want pencil holders for the bell flare.

[ghmerrill]

For years I used self-made leather guards on a full size BBb tuba I had. I got the leather from the local Tandy store as "remnants", punched holes in the pieces I measured and cut, and then form-fitted them onto to the tuba by wetting them and lacing on with wet rawhide boot laces. They worked great and I never had any problems with them in any way. I now have a small one of those on my compensating euph now (where I've used some zip ties instead of the rawhide).

On my trombones, things are much simpler, and I abandoned the leather in favor of the smooth vinyl (?) shelf liner that you can buy at places like Lowes or Home Depot. I just cut it to size/shape and they (brace yourself) glue it on with super glue. I don't glue it to the horn!!! I carefully glue it to itself. This is easy and works marvelously well.

For a pen/pencil holder, I put about a 1"-1.5" wide strip of adhesive-backed velcro on one of the tuning slides (it's a bass), put its opposite variety on my pen/pencil, and voila!

Here's another slightly related hint it took me a while to figure out ...

I use (non-reflective) plastic sleeves in a 3-ring binder for all the pages of our community band parts (even though these are just printed from online versions). This makes for easy management and use of the pages, and they don't blow around even in a pretty decent wind. But then in rehearsal, making any notes on them is a real pain -- because you can't use a pencil or normal pen to write on the plastic, and the alternative is to take the page out, make the note, put it back, etc. Even a Sharpie won't work.

I got so tired of this that I spent enough time searching for an alternative and discovered the miracle of Sharpie oil based paint pens. They look like regular Sharpies except for saying "Paint/Peinture" and "Oil Based" on them. They're also a bit more expensive. But they work great on the plastic (and it dries quite quickly -- in a minute or less). So now I have one in red and one in black. You can scratch it off with a fingernail if you're in a hurry, or just wipe off with some alcohol. Works for me.

[fantrombone]

If it is raw leather with the tie string, it works best for me. The metal on the horn wears off on my neck and I get welts. The vinyl irritates me. It would be great if it were made out of a smooth material that was washable, like terrycloth or some type of velvet.

[mbtrombone]

When I was younger I had them on my slide. I don’t use leather grips on my horns anymore. Didn’t like how fat it made the cross braces on my Bach 42.

Tried the neck guards on my inline Axial Shires, but I am a bigger guy and found the leather sitting on my neck bumped the horn out enough that I noticed. I also found the leather irritating on my skin on my neck. I just let my acidic skin oils eat my horn slowly…

[AtomicClock]

I use (non-reflective) plastic sleeves in a 3-ring binder for all the pages of our community band parts (even though these are just printed from online versions). This makes for easy management and use of the pages, and they don't blow around even in a pretty decent wind.

How well does the "non-reflective" bit work? The last time I tried sheet protectors, the glare was pretty terrible. For all I know, I already had the non-reflective ones (I didn't know to look at the box).

[ghmerrill]

You're right, the glare from "standard" plastic sleeves makes them pretty useless for playing music in most circumstances.

The non-reflective sleeves I have are these: C-Line Top Loading Super Heavyweight Poly Sheet Protectors
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0006 ... =UTF8&th=1

I got them in 2016 and they're still going strong. But there are tradeoffs.

They're heavy, and so if you have a notebook full of these, it can make your stand top-heavy. That doesn't work well with cheesy wire music stands or lightweight ones, or portable ones with bases that are really stable.

The glare reduction is great, but the price you pay is that contrast of the print on the page is reduced. This can make a bit of a difference in bad light, or in the case of a poorly printed page. I normally use a stand light anyway, unless playing outside in sunlight.

One other advantage to them that I've discovered is that if you get the right type of pen(s) you can mark up your music all you want without marking the paper. For that, I use Sharpie oil-based paint markers (extra fine) in different colors. When you're done, you can just wipe that off with some tissue or paper towel and alcohol.

Because of the weight issue, I've recently gone to a process of not using the sleeves except for outdoor gigs. But I may investigate lighter weight ones if I can find any.