TromboneChat

When I picked up a 65 year old horn today the shop owner recommended a new slide lube from Yamaha. It is in a tubular bottle with a purple label. Recommends cleaning the slide of previous oils / moisture and then applying a slight amount to both inners. Add a spritz of water as needed.

I use SoM on all my other horns but I was duly impressed with this new lube on my old Besson.

Rob said it doesn't cake up like the Yamaha slide cream.

Yes, it's been around for quite some time. I have used it for maybe 10 years now.

Feel free to not even use water, I haven't used it at all in those 10 years.

Yes, the Yamaha slide lube is very good. Just a dab on each stocking, another dab on upper slide. Work it in by rotating and sliding. On my (good) slides I spray a tiny mist of distilled water about once/hour (if at all). Works great!

+1 for Yamaha slide lube.

For me Trombotine works better, I think it depends on my saliva.

Yep, what they (above) said!

+1. Though it seems like the first few uses are a billion times better than the rest of what's in the bottle. No matter how much you shake it up.

+1. For some older horns with slightly corroded inner slide tubes I discovered other combinations (Trombotine and water spray) to be better, but for everything else, Yamaha it is. I just recently did a direct comparison of the combined SlideOMix and the Yamaha. Yamaha is definitely worth the doubled price.

Yamaha purple slide lubricant works even very fine on my Eb front action piston valves. And the best valve oil works fine until the piston suddently starts sticking, whereas Jammy slide snot gets slowly slower, but never sticks my tuba valves.
Meaning I know when to reapply without sticking valves. Works on euph too...

Love Yamaha Slide Oil! Though (I find) for my older horns, Yamaha Slide Cream works a tad better.

I use a base of trombotine and then Yamaha stuff. That combination lasts forever for me

I use the Yamaha stuff on my Shires slides, but Trombotine works much better on my older instruments (a mid/late 60s Bach 50 and a 1940 Conn 70H).

I have read in past that the Yamaha Cream, slide lubricant and water were conceived to work all together (do not remember well but probably a Japanese site or something alikes). Putting one screen of cream then add water and then a couple of drops of the slide lubricant to adjust slipperiness. This mixing was logical to me as the base cream would add a more durable base and then the lubricant would be only to make It slipper and one could add little drops instead of several as with no cream base (slide lubricant alone or with water). This should extend lifetime of both a cream and a lubricant. I have tried this myself not much time along and told a couple of friends who also tryed It and we all got satisfied.

Any thoughts?

Jose

I use a combination of cream and the liquid too. I started by using both of the Yamaha products, but tried Trombone instead and it was just a bit better. I don't use the cream (Trombone) every time, and I use very little of each product. I also wipe down the inner slides after working the slide back and forth before applying the liquid (again, just a few drops). This process works pretty well for me, and lasts longer than just the liquid alone.

Jim Scott

Been using the Yamaha Sldie Lubricant (oil) on all my trombones for around 10 years. No water! It's magic! Just make sure you keep both the inner and outer slide CLEAN!!!

Just noticed that auto-correct didn't like Trombotine in my previous message - in case that caused any confusion.

JS

I use it together with just a few drops from the small bottle from the Slide-O-Mix, and works really well for me.

The yamaha works better than slide-o-mix for me

I had tried this years ago when they had that "spreader" applicator, and didn't like. But I just got some -- after going through some of the 2-part approaches for years -- and think its great. I do use it with water misting since that just seems to work better on my slide.

I have always found the Yamaha products to be sufficient if not superior. A few drops on the base coat of cream is really slick. I have used it on my yamaha 682b for two decades now. Good stuff!

Odd man out here. I like UltraPure Alessi Formula Slide Lube better. For me, a base of Trombotine, then using a drop or three of UltraPure works just slightly better than Trombotine + YamaSnot. Adding UltraPure as needed makes it last a long time before needing another base of Trombotine.

A report:

I've been using Yamaha lube in different 'mixes', and with some fellow bone players ideas here as well over the last few months on an old King 2B SS with a great slide. (...damn heavy, but it moves!)

The Yamaha has been good, but not great.
(Some days I'd have to re-do the slide, and other times it would last a little longer like for several days or more...but, still 'good but not great') Maybe it's very 'weather-dependent' for me and the horn.

Thought I'd give the 'REKA Super-Slide lube' another chance just for kicks. The first time I ever tried it I wasn't impressed after a few minutes, and the slide seemed kind of sticky and slow. So, cleaned the slide again and went back to Yamaha.

But, I said to myself to really give the REKA a good try.

Wow....the first couple of minutes I had my doubts....but as I played more and more, the slide just got better and better and better. Have never had such a swift slide before!

So, will report back after a few days or more and I'm curious to see how the REKA holds up! So far it's pretty amazing on this old horn. Will put some on my old Conn 88H to see how she does there.

When I contacted Alastair Kay about what to use on a Yamaha YSL 697Z slide, he recommended the liquid Yamaha Slide Oil, now known as Yamaha Slide Lubricant. A small amount of lubricant and water mist would last an entire rehearsal or performance. It seems to last for weeks with fresh water mist and occasional re-application of the lubricant. Weekly cleaning is still a better plan. I have used it on everything that I own since then. It is also forgiving: If an excess of lubricant is applied, indicated by hysteresis, I wipe the slide dry with a paper towel and re-apply water mist. I am then able to complete the rehearsal. I do clean the slide at the first opportunity. I usually use only Dawn Dish Soap and a snake. I have purchased fewer than half a dozen bottles in I believe over 20 years. One bottle may last me up to 5 years.

Have y'all looked at the Safety Data Sheet for the Yamaha Lubricant and compared it to any others? I did that because I wondered how similar (chemically) it was and whether it was just "more of the same stuff" as other brands -- since I have quite a collection of silicone-based slide and valve lubricants sitting around here. Indeed, it does appear to differ in some ways from (at least the published data on) other slide and valve lubricants. One striking difference is the inclusion of ethylene glycol (which I learned is used as a surfactant in a number of products, including cosmetics). It does appear (they give no numbers in the Data Sheet in terms of the relative amounts of the ingredients used) that they have added different surfactants and also some (otherwise unspecified) "anti-corrosive agents" to the mix.

But my point here is that the Yamaha stuff does appear to be genuinely different in terms of its composition from other silicone slide lubricants I've used (at least from what I can tell in looking at published disclosures -- which often seem to mention just things like "silicone oil"), and this might explain why it works better, at least for me.