TromboneChat

Hi everyone,

I was wondering how you all store your unused mouthpieces? I have most in a drawer packed in the boxes, but the ones that I am trying/using seem to sit out on a table on an MB rag. Just curious what you all do.

Pouches! Make sure to wash them with soap and water, then dry 'em, then away they go.
Drawers or boxes are fine as long as they're not loose. They can get cruddy real fast.

Someone was giving away a very nice rosewood wristwatch display case, where each compartment is exactly the right size for one trombone mouthpiece (or two if they're small). 10 compartments. I have pouches for those that don't live in that case or for when I need to take one out and carry it. I have a yearly tradition of knitting a lot each December, so every year I make a few more pouches to add to the collection or for gifts to colleagues.

Wherever I am ends up littered with mouthpiece pouches and I end up digging through them looking for where I put X.

In a drawer, rim down on microfiber cloths.

I store my mouthpieces in paper egg cartons, six to a carton, and replace the cartons occasionally. I put a strong rubber band around the cartons for transport. Works great!

I'm probably gonna make people cringe, but I just set em rim down on the dresser, or keep em in the case if they only go with one horn.
I mostly find them used anyways for less than 20 bucks, and I find no noticeable change in the rim. If you got like, very expensive mouthpieces though like a Mt. Vernon or a Greg Black, you probably shouldn't do this.

I have some small cardboard boxes that I cut some holes into that hold the pieces rim up. I have a rack for mouthpiece that I use and a few more racks of pieces that I don't use.

I keep them in two mouthpiece cases.

biggiesmalls wrote: ↑Thu May 28, 2020 9:06 pm I store my mouthpieces in paper egg cartons, six to a carton, and replace the cartons occasionally. I put a strong rubber band around the cartons for transport. Works great!

What a great idea. I like it.

My car glove box.

biggiesmalls wrote: ↑Thu May 28, 2020 9:06 pm I store my mouthpieces in paper egg cartons, six to a carton, and replace the cartons occasionally. I put a strong rubber band around the cartons for transport. Works great!

This is ingenious! Well played!

Yeah, I really like the egg carton idea. Not very portable, but really good.

I do woodworking and built this box last winter. Turned out so good I thought about taking orders and selling online!

Neo Bri wrote: ↑Fri May 29, 2020 10:16 am Yeah, I really like the egg carton idea. Not very portable, but really good.

If they are mouthpieces you don't use, portability shouldn't be much of an issue.

BGuttman wrote: ↑Fri May 29, 2020 12:42 pm

Neo Bri wrote: ↑Fri May 29, 2020 10:16 am Yeah, I really like the egg carton idea. Not very portable, but really good.

If they are mouthpieces you don't use, portability shouldn't be much of an issue.

Unless you move a lot like me.

I store my unused mouthpieces by cleaning them with soap and water, allowing them to dry, placing them in an anti-tarnish bag, and laying them gently in a box with a cloth on the bottom. I try not rest my mouthpieces on the rims to avoid the remote possibility of scratching the rim.

FWIW, if I have to set a mouthpiece I’m using down on a table and I don’t have a cloth handy, I will place it so the shank points inward towards the middle of the table. If it rolls, it won’t roll off the table, fall to the ground, and dent or scratch the mouthpiece. Experience is an excellent teacher!*

*Now that I think about it, I learned this from Peter Ellefson. Credit where it’s due.

Recently I've been buying up these old heavy duty Super 8 projector cases that hold up to eight cartons, or 48 mouthpieces. Great for carrying music as well!

I use plastic small parts storage trays. I've picked up a lot of mouthpieces over the years.

I have four trays; one each for standard large shank, Olds large shank, standard small shank, and Olds small shank.

I tend to sell unused mouthpieces, so not much need to store them for any length of time. The one or two I do keep around goes rim down on a soft cloth on a bookshelf next to where I practice.

This case came with a set of bbq tools.
I up-cycled it using some spare foam I had from re-lining a case

In a heap in a cardboard box.
The ones I use live in DE pouches.

My main storage is inside some Wedge cylindrical mouthpiece "cases". One per mouthpiece. Airtight means that they don't oxidize to any significant amount.

I have several mouthpieces. I store them in pouches/cases from various sources. I have a couple of small soft leather pouches. Found that silver-plated mouthpieces tarnish badly when stored in these pouches. (Some chemical in the leather. ) Polished the silver-plated mouthpieces and moved them to nylon pouches. I have two gold-plated mouthpieces now stored in the leather pouches with no effect on the plating. All is well.

Posaunus wrote: ↑Sun May 31, 2020 11:02 am ... (Some chemical in the leather. ) ,,,

Most leathers contain sulfur compounds, some naturally in the hides and others added in the tanning and finishing process. Sulfur causes a more persistent silver tarnish than the oxygen in air.

BGuttman wrote: ↑Sun May 31, 2020 11:39 am

Posaunus wrote: ↑Sun May 31, 2020 11:02 am ... (Some chemical in the leather. ) ,,,

Most leathers contain sulfur compounds, some naturally in the hides and others added in the tanning and finishing process. Sulfur causes a more persistent silver tarnish than the oxygen in air.

Bruce,

Thanks for the explanation. I'm down on leather mouthpiece cases – that tarnish was indeed hard to remove.
Nylon or vinyl pouches for me from now on.

On bookshelves, on the piano, in my study, depends where I was when I put them down. My wife is not impressed by this.

There was a thread about storing mouthpieces about a year ago. I hope someone can find it and connect it to this thread in some way.

I have 140+ mouthpieces........not because I am a hoarder, but because so many of them have nostalgic value for me. When my high school private-study teacher passed away in the late 90's, his estate went up for auction. My brother (also a musician and brass instrument enthusiast) and I bid and won many of his instruments and mouthpieces (he had hundreds). It took me several years to painstakingly refurbish and re-plate many of these collectable mouthpieces and I had to find a way to store the mouthpieces safely in a small area. Many of my mouthpieces have stories related to my teacher's friends that played under Sousa's baton or musicians that he met at Ernest Williams' summer orchestral camps.

I bought five or six reasonably priced briefcases and a lot of eggshell foam padding. I removed any compartments or paper/pencil holders in the briefcases so that they were nothing but shells. I cut the eggshell foam padding to the exact rectangular dimensions of the brief cases and glued them on the top and bottom of the inside. A couple of the briefcases were about an inch wider, so I cut a third eggshell insert so that those briefcases could house two layers of mouthpieces.

The regular-sized brief cases hold about 22-28 mouthpieces in perfect position.....no shifting and no nicks or scratches from other mouthpieces. The wider briefcases (double layer) hold as many as 44 mouthpieces securely. Other than the fact that the double-layer briefcases are very heavy to carry, it is a perfect and extremely efficient way to store mouthpieces. I put a couple of anti-tarnish strips in each briefcase and they remain polished and scratch-free!

Here is a photo of one of the briefcases. These are mostly modern and rather large mouthpieces. The smallest is this briefcase is a Conn Remington and the largest are Elliott XB 116 P and Schilke D6.0. I chose to share this photo because it shows that just one briefcase can safely store 23 rather large mouthpieces.

http://trombonechat.com/download/file.p ... ew&id=5180