Refurbishing an old Conn slide

[bobroden]

I recently inherited a 1935 Conn 44H from a close friend of mine. It's actually a pretty cool horn, and lights up pretty nicely when pushed a little.

The slide is in decent adjustment, but has noticeable wear on the stockings, and I'm wondering if there's anything I can or should do to deal with that.

Replacing the tubes would be one option, but wouldn't that risk changing the sound or some other playing characteristics of the horn? I honestly don't know, am just wondering.

Is there something in the nature of a re-plating option, or some other kind of treatment to minimize the roughness from the wear or limit additional wear going forward?

Could the Slide Doctor do anything here beyond an alignment?

Thanks in advance for your thoughts.

Bob

[BGuttman]

You couldn't get a good replate on the slide tubes.

What I've done with slides with bare spots is to polish them as clean as possible (using cream brass polish or a wadding like Nevr-Dull), wash off any residue, apply a good wax like Pledge furniture polish, dry and polish, and follow up with your regular lube. You will have to redo this periodically. The more you use the slide, the longer the Pledge treatment seems to last. I have done without the Pledge treatment and it's worked well also; just doesn't last as long.

[bobroden]

That's a great suggestion, Bruce, thanks. Since it basically plays well, I Iike the idea of just minimizing the spots' effects rather than getting too aggressive about it.

[hyperbolica]

I play several horns with worn-through chrome plate. It's not usually that bad. If this is going to be a daily critical use horn, then yeah, I'd replace the inners. If it's a casual or collector horn, leave it as is and polish the wear as well as you can. A middle option is to have the inner tubes turned 90 deg, depending on the wear location to keep the outer off the worn spots. That keeps it original and makes it as smooth as it will get without replacement.

[bobroden]

A middle option is to have the inner tubes turned 90 deg, depending on the wear location to keep the outer off the worn spots. That keeps it original and makes it as smooth as it will get without replacement.

Thanks, that's another really excellent option to be aware of. Appreciate it!