TromboneChat

I rebuilt a friends Bach slide a year ago. It was way out of alignment! It is now absolutely parallel and flat and the inners match the outers.
He uses Yammasnot.
He says for the first hour of playing it is perfect, then it starts dragging and he has to re-lube it.
Any ideas what the problem is?

Might be too much lube. I have the same problem with a Shires slide of mine.

My slide, as well as many other people's, gets tarnished on the inside of the outers and starts to get rough feeling after awhile. I have to scrub it out and possibly polish the inside of the outers to get it working well again. This is with a perfectly aligned slide. I do a clean and polish on 100% of the slides I service. And by cleaning, I mean actually removing the corrosion inside, not just snaking it out with water.

brassmedic wrote: ↑Thu Aug 03, 2023 12:20 am My slide, as well as many other people's, gets tarnished on the inside of the outers and starts to get rough feeling after awhile. I have to scrub it out and possibly polish the inside of the outers to get it working well again. This is with a perfectly aligned slide. I do a clean and polish on 100% of the slides I service. And by cleaning, I mean actually removing the corrosion inside, not just snaking it out with water.

What do you use to polish the outer slide tubes?

On the too much idea, I try to get a minimal amount. My method is to drop a couple drops in the outers and let it run slowly down, and chase it with a 20ga nylon shotgun brush, brushing it into the outers. This should make for an even distribution of the lube. Then I insert the clean inners and go. Seems to work for a few days without any attention.

Another option:

Is it a trigger horn, and is he using a valve oil that doesn't get on with the Yamasnot? Would explain the time interval phenomenon.

Back when I was in school and doing as I was told, had exactly this problem with Al Cass in the valve, dripping down to a Slide-O-Mixed slide. (Both products I would not recommend.)

Ultrapure on the valves, Yamaha (plus or minus a little Superslick cream or Trombotine) on the slide... no issues.

2nd Ultrapure on valves (and tuning slides!) and Yamasnot on the slide

I use Yammasnot and sometimes Rapid Comfort with a swabbed outer and wiped down inner slide every morning.
I swab with a cleaning rod wrapped in cheesecloth with enough winds to provide ample thickness to get a good "grip" on the brass without getting tight or potentially stuck.

I will apply a small amount of the Yamaha, plenty of distilled water from a sprayer and put each outside tube on individually and rotate them while moving the slide up and down, then load both tubes in the outer slide. If things ever start to drag I will not reapply lubricant but wipe down the inner slide and spray with water and see if it's good again. Usually this works for me on my Shires slides. If not, then I might apply Rapid Comfort. 50% of the time removing excess works and a little Rapid Comfort the other 50% of the time. Since my slide gets cleaned once a month and polished every 6 months those don't factor in.

None of that addresses the corrosion issue that affects a lot of slides. It needs to be swabbed repeatedly with a low-abrasive brass polish until it stops coming out black. That may take 20 times.
I think there are some videos online describing the process.

Low abrasive brass polish is hard to come by. Hard to find Wrights, Hagerty, or Goddards. My Wrights must be about 20 years old and was a gift from Denny Seifried.

Wrights is available on Amazon FWIW

I think Brasso is too coarse of an abrasive, but maybe could be a first step.
Probably any silver polish would work to finish.

I learned from Bruce Belo (best slide tech on the planet in my opinion) to polish the inside of the outers with miracle cloth. You can get it at Amazon. He spins a trombone cleaning rod (you have to cut off the round part that you use as a handle) with the miracle cloth on it in and out of the length of the tubes. He uses gloves as the tubes will get hot. You have to be especially careful, because if the rod is spanning, and it's not in the tube, it will bend and really wack you one. Just have to make sure that you use enough pressure to push the rod into the tube. I am a tech, and do it all the time, and the tubes come out great! Very smooth and fast! You just need to clean out all the residue from the miracle cloth when you are done (you only need to run them in and out maybe 4 times or so, slowly) I use dawn liquid and a snake after, then lacquer thinner. Always let a slide dry thoroughly before putting it back together. You need to repeat the cleaning process several days in a row with lacquer thinner 'till all the black residue comes out. If you go through this, your slide (provides that the slide is straight and true) will work great! If you want it done, but don't want to do it yourself, you can send it to me or Bruce.