Old Yamaha Slide cream bottles

[BrianJohnston]

Why did Yamaha stop making their older bottle, and resort to a new less useful design?

Anyone know where to still buy the old bottles?

[Doug Elliott]

My guess is that the old bottles with that spreader pad were custom made for them, and they went to a cheaper standard bottle. It's the same stuff inside.

[Burgerbob]

Some people had the old bottles break, and they were probably more expensive to make.

I like the new design too, it's fine.

[mwpfoot]

Yes, the heads on the old bottles would shear off.

New bottle is not great but at least it doesn't break is my take.

[BrianJohnston]

Thanks for the answers above! I also just figured out that you can refill the old bottles (if you still have them with the stuff in the new bottles), so I think i'm good to go now

[harrisonreed]

The old bottle would fall apart at the nozzle. The new one is fine!

It's not cream though

[PhilE]

I've used that lubricant for some years. It is very good but its consistency is inconsistent. Sometimes it becomes watery. Sometimes it recovers and sometimes not.

When it has become watery, the outer slide skims it off as I bring it up after applying the lube. Not so much with Bach slides. Some times it just falls off the inner tube before I have a chance to get the outer slide up to it.

I now use the Yamaha slide cream. It is just as good a lubricant but without the problems.

It is applied in the same was as any other slide cream with a little bit of water spray after.

[DougHulme]

Interesting in the UK... about 2 years ago now all the music shops in the coutry were stopped from selling all oils and lubricants that didnt have child proof lids on them (which was pretty much all of them). Whole shop stocks had to be returned to the makers (well at least those that complied with the directive) and wait for re bottled supplies to be delivered. Its Ok now but I wonder if that had any influence on the Yamaha change of bottle?... Doug

[Pre59]

When it has become watery, the outer slide skims it off as I bring it up after applying the lube. Not so much with Bach slides. Some times it just falls off the inner tube before I have a chance to get the outer slide up to it.

I now use the Yamaha slide cream. It is just as good a lubricant but without the problems.

My experience exactly. I've gone back to Trombotine and water spray, which is not quite as good as Yamaha snot at it's very best, but it's "predicable", you know what you're getting. I also suspect that the yamaha has a limited shelf life..

[harrisonreed]

Yeah, its limited shelf life is much shorter than the time it takes to get through a bottle of it, even playing hours every day.

[soseggnchips]

I've not had a problem with the longevity of the Yamaha stuff, but I used to have constant problems with Slide-o-Mix. It seemed like any time the temparature changed the big bottle would turn to water.

I still buy the Slide-o-Mix small bottles. I put a few drops on the stocking, then a larger amount of Yamaha over the top. Seems to work well enough. I never use a water sprayer.

One thing I did like about the older Yamaha bottles was the lids had grooves on the outside - easier to open the bottle one-handed with the trombone in the other for a quick top-up during rests.

[Shumanbean]

Did they change the formula, as well? I thought I read that the new formula resists drying.
The old bottle tends to clog up on me. For what it's worth, my experience has been that Yamaha works well with newer slides, but on my older horns, I ended up using Rapid Comfort, but with the necessity of cleaning more often.

[Driswood]

I've used that lubricant for some years. It is very good but its consistency is inconsistent. Sometimes it becomes watery. Sometimes it recovers and sometimes not.

I live in Florida, and if I leave my horn in my car in the summer, the lube becomes very thin and watery.
I read on the old Forum that Sam Burtis stored his in the refrigerator. Sometimes that will resurrect it, sometimes not. But keeping it cool definitely preserves the thick consistency.

[mbtrombone]

So, after using quite a few bottles of this stuff (maybe 40 or more? Stopped counting), they thin out no matter what you do. I tried the fridge thing, I tried the shaking before use for a minute thing, I tried storing them cap down, or cap up. In the end it seems to be very temperature sensitive. Hot is really bad for the stuff, it will always thin out in a hot car, and it won’t recover from that.

I also prefer the oldest tip, not the spreader disc, or the current tip (mainly because the cap is huge for no real reason). I also take my outer slide off, put a drop of the slide lubricant down each tube, spread it on each inner separately while moving the outer up and down in a circular motion, and then put the outer back on (Mark Lawrence showed me this technique).

Finally, when the Yamaha stuff gets too thin, I help it out with a little bit of Conn Formula 3 on the stockings of the inners. Super slick will probably work too, or maybe the extra silicone bottle for Super Slick/Slide-O-Mix (the smaller bottles)