Problem with nickel-silver smell and taste from slide

[berntd]

My older Yamaha YSL-354 causes a metallic taste in my mouth that makes teeth feel rough. Smelling into the slide, it smells slightly like an eletroplating bath.

The slide has been chemically cleaned and since then,
rinsed, cleaned, bathed, neutralised, polished many times.
The situation returns shortly after.

It has been like this since I got the trombone some months back.

I scoped the slide inside with a camera and it is clean and silver with thin lenght wise black lines that could be seams or scratches.

There are some 2 or 3 areas where there is a brass like golden shine instead of silver.
I do not know what that is but it will not go away.

When I wipe or polish the inside, there is always black on the rag.

The smell is hard to describe, it has an electrical/chemical smell, much like an electric model train used to smell where the wheels arced and made contact on the rails.
Electroplating smell? Don't laugh.


What could be going on here?

Regards
Bernt

[walldaja]

What's the outer slide like inside? Have you cleaned and swabbed it? The crook is an area that could hold some vile elements too. You may want to run a brush through the entire outer slide and see how it goes. Do you keep it in its case and does the case have any odors?

Don't know what to make of your black lines.

[hyperbolica]

I would go at it with dishwashing soap and appropriate snakes/rods with cheese cloth. Bath/shower soak/rinse. Do it yourself with supplies you recognize (no chemicals aside from the soap). Clean it until the black stops. That might be 5-10 times.

And then I would stop sniffing your horn. That's just looking for trouble and a little gross.

[ithinknot]

Do you have other instruments?

Assuming it really is clean, are you always using the same slide lube? If so, clean the slide again and then try something different. Hard to imagine how, but perhaps your lubricant is old and deteriorates oddly once in use, or somehow disagrees with your own chemistry.

When you say "rinsed, cleaned, bathed, neutralised, polished", I'm slightly wondering what "neutralised" and "polished" mean, and which substances are involved...

Re the mouth taste, it's unlikely to be a generic nickel sensitivity issue, given that all inner slide tubes are nickel silver even if the outers aren't.

Anyway, if it really is rotting and cursed, move on. Plenty of 354s in the sea, and more on land.

[CharlieB]

It sure sounds like the acid used to chemically clean the horn has still not been thoroughly neutralized, despite the efforts made. I've never had this problem after having a tech chem clean a slide.
If that acid is in the pores of the metal, now trapped by layers of polish and slide lube, there is no way for a neutralizing agent to reach it. Sounds like it's time for a competent tech to start all over and do it right.

[Burgerbob]

I've noticed this same smell, usually in student horns. I'd definitely just clean it a few times and perhaps get a new case.

[berntd]

Ok, to answer back:

We are talking about the outer slide inside not inner slide.
I have 8 other horns and no such issues.
I use Yamaha slide lube, the latest, it is not old and I use it on all my trombones.
This trombone has not been in its case for some weeks. I have it on a stand.

This slide was certainly chemically cleaned with phosphoric acid mix as they always do.

Regarding:
Neutralising: I tried to re-neutralise any acid remnants by using bicarbonate of soda.
Polishing: I used the Bill Watrous method of rag around rod and polish it until it is hot. several times by now.

It has has several cleans with dish soap, hot water, rags, compressed air etc. It is seriously clean.

The slid is works fine except for this problem.

Looking into it, it appears ok except for a few spots that have a seem to be a brassy colour instead of gray/silver.


I wonder if the material used for the slide is not the problem.


I cannot afford to spend any more money on this particular horn.
Not sure what to do about it next.


@Burgerbob, that is interesting that you have encountered this as well.


Regards
berntd

[Burgerbob]

I've encountered it on several horns, usually stored for a long time. I'm not aware of anything that made it go away but I didn't try much.

[ithinknot]

Ok, to answer back:
...

I've encountered it on several horns, usually stored for a long time. I'm not aware of anything that made it go away but I didn't try much.

Ok. I started on a Holton that had similar (?) issues. The case stank, and that was inhumanely destroyed pretty promptly. But the horn stank too, in a way that always struck me as more chemical than biological - I haven't spent much time electroplating or huffing model trains, so I can't compare it to yours, but I (try not to) remember it as a sort of 'metallic fermenting banana' smell. Anyway - it did go away eventually, but only after maybe 18 months of fortnightly baths.

Doug was teaching me to breathe through the corners last week - guess how I learned the habit of inhaling while the horn was still in the case...

[CharlieB]

Ok, to answer back:
I cannot afford to spend any more money on this particular horn.
Not sure what to do about it next.
Regards
berntd

Got it. No more money.
Maybe the problem is in the slide crook ?
Zero cost trick from the old days for cleaning the slide crook (before we had flexible slide brushes)...........
Make a cleaning snake by tying a 6 foot length of strong twine to one end of a 12 inch long strip of cloth, and another 6 foot length of twine to the other end of the cloth strip. Tie a small weight to the free end of one of the twines. A fishing sinker works good. Shake the weight through the slide, pulling the twine and the cloth strip behind it until the weight comes out the other leg of the slide and the cloth crosses the crook. Using both twines, see-saw the cloth across the crook to provide scrubbing action. If you somehow miscalculate and the cloth gets stuck on the initial pull-thorough, you can always back it out with the other twine. This is essentially the "Bill Watrous" method for the crook, and to me it does a better job than a flexible brush.

[berntd]

I will try this. Great idea with the sinker. A nut will work too and I have this
Does it need a knot in that cloth strip to become a scrubber?

[CharlieB]

A big Hi again to Down Under.
A knot works well because it contacts the entire diameter of the crook instead of just the near side.
I have a knot in the snake I use regularly for my horns.
Experiment carefully to make sure that it isn't tight enough to require hard pulling on the cords.
Make sure the knot doesn't bind at the spit valve. Sometimes there's a rough spot there.
This is a job for gentle hands. It's easy to bend the slide if you get too aggressive.
Now this snake procedure is a high-tech trade secret, so mum's the word.

[brassmedic]

When you say you polish it with a rag on a stick, is that with some kind of polish, or just a dry rag? Not sure a dry rag would do much to polish the metal. If it's Brasso or the like, that can be harder than you think to clean out of the tubes, and would account for "black stuff" coming out when you clean it. Also, if you're seeing spots inside that are not the same color as the rest of the tube, then obviously that's some kind of corrosion. I have encountered older slides that are just so corroded inside that it's virtually impossible to remove it all. If that's the case, you could spend a lifetime swabbing it with a cleaning rod and brass polish and never get it all. You might think you did a lot of cleaning, but you may not have actually gotten it clean.

[berntd]

Hi, I have not used polish. Rag only.
The slide is grey shiny jndide so did not warrant any abrasive polishing.

The spots I see are golden or brass in colour. I don't think corrosion can look like that. They could be remnants of previously repaired dents but nothing is visible from the outside.

Pity that we canmot post pictures here.

Regards
Bernt

[brassmedic]

Repairing dents doesn't change nickel silver into a golden color. Unless it is tarnished or rotted it's the same color all the way through.

[brassmedic]

Pity that we canmot post pictures here.

Regards
Bernt

I think you can click the "Attachments" tab and upload pictures. I you are using the "quick reply" box you have to click on "full editor and preview".

[Doug Elliott]

A dry rag will only burnish the corrosion and not remove it - and possibly make it even harder to remove.

To really remove it, a flex-hone would do the job, or you could probably use Scotchbrite on a cleaning rod - the dark red Very Fine grade would be good for that - I use it wet, with dish soap (Dawn). Yes they're abrasive but you need to cut through the hard corrosion. You shouldn't use something that abrasive regularly, but once or twice won't hurt anything, it doesn't remove any measurable amount of metal.

[venessa12]

I would go at it with dishwashing soap and appropriate snakes/rods with cheese cloth. Bath/shower soak/rinse. Do it yourself with supplies you recognize (no chemicals aside from the soap). Clean it until the black stops. That might be 5-10 times.

And then I would stop sniffing your horn. That's just looking for trouble and a little gross.

I think this will work, I am also having this problem, thanks let my try this trick!!

[berntd]

Ok, OP here. An update: This problem did not go away for a long time. I believe it was caused by chemical cleaning of the nickel silver slide. I have since experience the same on a second horn that had been chemically cleaned.

I believe some solution of phosphoric acid is used. Whilst that is good for removing brass tarnish and buildup, I do not think (my opinion) that is a good idea for nickel silver slides.

I am not an chemical expert but since nickel silver is made from copper, nickel and zinc, the golden/yellow spots I saw in the tube, were likely zinc oxide and the black stuff possibly copper oxide.

I have since decided that no further nickel silver horn parts of mine will be chemically cleaned with that type of solution in future.


Regards
Bernt