Longevity of unlacquered saxophones
- Thread starter bpimentel
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Notes,
While I haven't spent a ton of time in south Florida, comfortable is not a term that came to mind the one time I was there when it was really hot.
I'm a midwest guy so my horns are safe from the ravages of the salt air. Our problems center on the ever changing humidity.
While I haven't spent a ton of time in south Florida, comfortable is not a term that came to mind the one time I was there when it was really hot.
I'm a midwest guy so my horns are safe from the ravages of the salt air. Our problems center on the ever changing humidity.
There are lots of people who live on the West Coast, and I mean directly on the West Coast (I live inland slightly), who play unlacquered horns. I can honestly tell you I have never seen anyone's unlacquered horn look like yours NN--and that's after living most of my life here. So what is the difference between Florida and the BC Coast & Pacific Northwest? Less salt?
Are other horn players having the same problems with their finishes as you are? This should be affecting trumpets, trombones, and the likes. Is it perhaps something specific to your exact geographic location? I'm wondering, since we haven't heard of this phenomena wide-spread throughout Florida. Which is kinda' strange, because you'd think people would talk about it.
Are other horn players having the same problems with their finishes as you are? This should be affecting trumpets, trombones, and the likes. Is it perhaps something specific to your exact geographic location? I'm wondering, since we haven't heard of this phenomena wide-spread throughout Florida. Which is kinda' strange, because you'd think people would talk about it.
I don't find it too hot here, I like it. However, in the winter when it drops under 70F I put the heater on.
The bugs are big. Roaches the size of corvettes. They are mighty nutritious though, but it's difficult to rope and hog-tie them.
I've seen other horns get patina on them in South Florida, trumpets, etc. But the Couf seems to be the worst case. I suspect because there is a higher copper content in the Couf than in other horns.
Where the gold plating has worn off my Grassi, it's getting green. Constant polishing only slows it down. It's become my outdoor saxophone.
I've seen brass fittings on boats look even worse than my Couf.
I've seen nickel covered bathroom valves with little green dots coming through the nickel.
Many years ago, when scores of telegraph wires ran along the FEC Railroad tracks, being mostly copper they turned the same green color as my Couf saxophone.
For the youngsters, telegraph lines - not my picture.
Imagine them bright green and that's what they looked like in south Florida.
Look what happened to the copper coating on the Statue of Liberty
Looks good from a distance, but I suspect if you got close it would look a little like my Couf.
For years people have plated or put lacquer on brass to keep it from corroding. It seems to me that to have a bare brass sax is to ignore the wisdom of the ages. Of course that is only my opinion and YMMV.
My question is, why does anyone want to buy a bare brass horn anyway? I don't find them attractive myself, but of course once again, that's a matter of taste. But why unprotected and open to oxidation?
Does it help to call it Patina? Verdigris?
Most unprotected metals corrode. That's why they are painted, plated, or lacquered. My Couf didn't turn green overnight, I played it for a number of years before the green started happening quicker than the polishing could keep up with it. And once it takes hold, it goes surprisingly fast.
From Wiki:
A patina layer takes many years to develop under natural weathering. A copper roof will patinate faster than a copper facade, due to the longer dwell time of water on the surface. Buildings in coastal / marine locations will weather and develop a patina layer faster than ones in inland areas. For example, a new copper facade in central London will most likely not develop a "typical" green patina until after 50 years.
So if you buy a bare brass saxophone, be warned this might happen.
Then again, it might not.
But then with climate change, green is in
Notes ♫
The bugs are big. Roaches the size of corvettes. They are mighty nutritious though, but it's difficult to rope and hog-tie them.
I've seen other horns get patina on them in South Florida, trumpets, etc. But the Couf seems to be the worst case. I suspect because there is a higher copper content in the Couf than in other horns.
Where the gold plating has worn off my Grassi, it's getting green. Constant polishing only slows it down. It's become my outdoor saxophone.
I've seen brass fittings on boats look even worse than my Couf.
I've seen nickel covered bathroom valves with little green dots coming through the nickel.
Many years ago, when scores of telegraph wires ran along the FEC Railroad tracks, being mostly copper they turned the same green color as my Couf saxophone.
For the youngsters, telegraph lines - not my picture.
Imagine them bright green and that's what they looked like in south Florida.
Look what happened to the copper coating on the Statue of Liberty
Looks good from a distance, but I suspect if you got close it would look a little like my Couf.
For years people have plated or put lacquer on brass to keep it from corroding. It seems to me that to have a bare brass sax is to ignore the wisdom of the ages. Of course that is only my opinion and YMMV.
My question is, why does anyone want to buy a bare brass horn anyway? I don't find them attractive myself, but of course once again, that's a matter of taste. But why unprotected and open to oxidation?
Does it help to call it Patina? Verdigris?
Most unprotected metals corrode. That's why they are painted, plated, or lacquered. My Couf didn't turn green overnight, I played it for a number of years before the green started happening quicker than the polishing could keep up with it. And once it takes hold, it goes surprisingly fast.
From Wiki:
A patina layer takes many years to develop under natural weathering. A copper roof will patinate faster than a copper facade, due to the longer dwell time of water on the surface. Buildings in coastal / marine locations will weather and develop a patina layer faster than ones in inland areas. For example, a new copper facade in central London will most likely not develop a "typical" green patina until after 50 years.
So if you buy a bare brass saxophone, be warned this might happen.
Then again, it might not.
But then with climate change, green is in
Notes ♫
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I've seen many different effects on bare brass horns, I'll see if I can break down what I've seen:
ocean air (long-term cruise ship gigs, living on an island): Sometimes has an effect. Usually the springs (if blued steel) are toast. Seems to start the green stuff you see in Notes pictures, but I have never seen in that bad, even in school instruments from Bermuda that were 30+ years old. Fixable but requires a lot of elbow grease and seems to keep coming back.
other air (living by a highway, NYC, LA, etc.): Seems to have an effect on the color of the patina and sometimes can make it smell a bit funky. Fixable either by changing environments or a light chemical cleaning (which will start the process over again).
storage: Will patina where it touches air, and possibly discolor where it touches case if left for a long time. Will self-correct unless the case is made of something weird, in which case it may need to be manually (polish or chemically) corrected.
Personal chemistry: This is the big one. I've seen bare brass horns played 5+ hours a day for years that look almost like the day they left my shop. I even had a guy I worked with who owned bare brass horns that were always a beautiful honey color, and we used to have him rub a bare brass horn down before it left the shop, and it was like he added a protective coating! (This started as a joke on one of my horns, but when it by-gum worked we kept doing it). I've also seen bare brass horns meticulously cared for and played very little that turned red, green, fuzzy- even seen brass worn through. Usually these players know of their effect- they've burned through lacquer and silver before. Its can be an uncomfortable discussion depending on who you are talking to (some people don't like to think they ever sweat, etc.), but I always talk to customers about their previous experiences with horns. If they burn through lacquer or silver, if they wear pearls or turn them bumpy, if their Eb tonehole looks like Notes' pictures, I try to steer them away from bare brass.
(Interesting anecdote: I had a customer with a silver SBA that his personal chemistry was just attacking in the worse way, and he LOVED that horn. It broke his heart- burning through the silver on the touchpoints, burning through the brass by the thumbrest, crazy purple tarnish on the silver that was a bear to get off. We went through many stages with it- wiping it down EVERY time he played, bringing it in for cleanings like twice a year- nothing seemed to help as much as we were hoping. Finally, as a desperate measure, he became mostly vegetarian, only eating meat on very special occasions. He had read that this might alter his body chemistry. Well I'll be darned if it didn't have an effect! The negative effects on his horn dropped about 50%- which was huge. It still tarnished, but it didn't turn purple anymore, and the exposed brass stopped getting noticeably thinner every time I saw him. I've only see this effect this one time, so take it for what its worth!)
So in my experience, personal chemistry seems to be by far the biggest variable. Other variables can help or hurt, but the make-or-break one seems to be the person who plays the horn.
Also, worth noting: most horns with a bare brass finish sold new today are either waxed (Yamaha, Borgani) or have a chemical patina applied (Mauriat). This is different from the very old bare brass finishes, and having your lacquer stripped and hand polished, which is simply unfinished brass (unless the tech applied something or gave it a chemical patina).
ocean air (long-term cruise ship gigs, living on an island): Sometimes has an effect. Usually the springs (if blued steel) are toast. Seems to start the green stuff you see in Notes pictures, but I have never seen in that bad, even in school instruments from Bermuda that were 30+ years old. Fixable but requires a lot of elbow grease and seems to keep coming back.
other air (living by a highway, NYC, LA, etc.): Seems to have an effect on the color of the patina and sometimes can make it smell a bit funky. Fixable either by changing environments or a light chemical cleaning (which will start the process over again).
storage: Will patina where it touches air, and possibly discolor where it touches case if left for a long time. Will self-correct unless the case is made of something weird, in which case it may need to be manually (polish or chemically) corrected.
Personal chemistry: This is the big one. I've seen bare brass horns played 5+ hours a day for years that look almost like the day they left my shop. I even had a guy I worked with who owned bare brass horns that were always a beautiful honey color, and we used to have him rub a bare brass horn down before it left the shop, and it was like he added a protective coating! (This started as a joke on one of my horns, but when it by-gum worked we kept doing it). I've also seen bare brass horns meticulously cared for and played very little that turned red, green, fuzzy- even seen brass worn through. Usually these players know of their effect- they've burned through lacquer and silver before. Its can be an uncomfortable discussion depending on who you are talking to (some people don't like to think they ever sweat, etc.), but I always talk to customers about their previous experiences with horns. If they burn through lacquer or silver, if they wear pearls or turn them bumpy, if their Eb tonehole looks like Notes' pictures, I try to steer them away from bare brass.
(Interesting anecdote: I had a customer with a silver SBA that his personal chemistry was just attacking in the worse way, and he LOVED that horn. It broke his heart- burning through the silver on the touchpoints, burning through the brass by the thumbrest, crazy purple tarnish on the silver that was a bear to get off. We went through many stages with it- wiping it down EVERY time he played, bringing it in for cleanings like twice a year- nothing seemed to help as much as we were hoping. Finally, as a desperate measure, he became mostly vegetarian, only eating meat on very special occasions. He had read that this might alter his body chemistry. Well I'll be darned if it didn't have an effect! The negative effects on his horn dropped about 50%- which was huge. It still tarnished, but it didn't turn purple anymore, and the exposed brass stopped getting noticeably thinner every time I saw him. I've only see this effect this one time, so take it for what its worth!)
So in my experience, personal chemistry seems to be by far the biggest variable. Other variables can help or hurt, but the make-or-break one seems to be the person who plays the horn.
Also, worth noting: most horns with a bare brass finish sold new today are either waxed (Yamaha, Borgani) or have a chemical patina applied (Mauriat). This is different from the very old bare brass finishes, and having your lacquer stripped and hand polished, which is simply unfinished brass (unless the tech applied something or gave it a chemical patina).
Thank you Matt. I was wondering about personal chemistry, but since I'm not a tech, I don't have the experience to back up my suspicions. I was however, thinking about people I know who can't wear jewelry because of the sweat, and other secretions that they give off. If those people were horn players, I could see that the damage that they do to their jewelry would happen to their instruments as well.
Glad to be of service!
Here is a photo where the player has a personal chemistry that eats through pearl and brass, but doesn't cause a ridiculous amount of visible corrosion or fuzz:
This is the type of horn/player combo where I would recommend pre-emptively patching the spot of metal next to the thumbrest. Better to replace a patch when it wears through to the still-intact body.
Here is a photo where the player has a personal chemistry that eats through pearl and brass, but doesn't cause a ridiculous amount of visible corrosion or fuzz:
This is the type of horn/player combo where I would recommend pre-emptively patching the spot of metal next to the thumbrest. Better to replace a patch when it wears through to the still-intact body.
Upon closer inspection, the pearls are out ouf round, but so are the rims of the receiving brass pieces.
Maybe these aren't pearls at all but rather some kind of stones, of teeth, or polished kidney stones, or....
Cannonball has solved the unlacquered sax problem nicely. They chemically treat the brass to look the same as if it has aged 100 years. They advertise that it will never look worse than the day you bought it. They call it "The Brute". High school and junior high kids love the finish. Go figure.
They call it "The Brute". High school and junior high kids love the finish. Go figure.
Ask and ye shall receive...
Here is another view (not as good of a photo and before I took the risers off)- guess without seeing it in person its tough to imagine! The pearl holders are indeed very worn, which is why the pearls are such a strange shape- the whole front of them is gone!
You can see this starting to happen on the G# in the first photo. Also look at the B pearl in the first photo- that silver patch is the solder between the pearl holder and the key cup! He's gone totally through the pearl and the holder and is starting on the key cup.
Here is another view (not as good of a photo and before I took the risers off)- guess without seeing it in person its tough to imagine! The pearl holders are indeed very worn, which is why the pearls are such a strange shape- the whole front of them is gone!
You can see this starting to happen on the G# in the first photo. Also look at the B pearl in the first photo- that silver patch is the solder between the pearl holder and the key cup! He's gone totally through the pearl and the holder and is starting on the key cup.
The oldest sax I own is an Adolphe Sax baritone, which is 150 years old this year. It has never been lacquered. When bought it in 1989, it had a dark patina, but it didn't look ugly. I had to clean up the horn to do repairs and resoldering, so I did all polishing by hand. Now, 20 years later, the horn looks dark - a lot like it did when I bought it, except that it plays like a new saxophone.
Bare brass saxes play well for a long time.
Bare brass saxes play well for a long time.
My chemistry doesn't seem to like brass, but it's OK with silver.
I have no idea why.
Notes
I have no idea why.
Notes
I have the same problem. I have eaten through nickel finishes, and into brass where not protected with lacquer. It's hard on the finish, and even harder on my fingers (the skin peels after prolonged exposure).
Mind you, there is copper in most alloys (why, I know not), including gold plating. However, it is present in far, far smaller quantities than in pure brass or copper. I imagine it has to do with the copper-sulphur compounds that result from contact with our sweating hands.
I do know that my fingers stink to high heaven after an evening of playing baritone saxophone. I wash them constantly, but at the end of a set the smell is back, same as before. When playing clarinets or alto sax (which is also done in a silver-plate finish), no such problem
Silver is far more active than copper, and you would think that it would make for more corrosive compounds. But, since I've had all my clarinets' key work silver plated, I have far less of the skin peeling than I did with the nickel. So, I don't care how it works as long as it does.
My baritone is still lacquered brass, however. Maybe I'll get it done when I have it overhauled.
Mind you, there is copper in most alloys (why, I know not), including gold plating. However, it is present in far, far smaller quantities than in pure brass or copper. I imagine it has to do with the copper-sulphur compounds that result from contact with our sweating hands.
I do know that my fingers stink to high heaven after an evening of playing baritone saxophone. I wash them constantly, but at the end of a set the smell is back, same as before. When playing clarinets or alto sax (which is also done in a silver-plate finish), no such problem
Silver is far more active than copper, and you would think that it would make for more corrosive compounds. But, since I've had all my clarinets' key work silver plated, I have far less of the skin peeling than I did with the nickel. So, I don't care how it works as long as it does.
My baritone is still lacquered brass, however. Maybe I'll get it done when I have it overhauled.
Silver as a noble metal doesn't react with many other materials except maybe sulphur - its suitability for alloys and its electrical properties don't correlate with chemical activity. Then, silver is a disinfectant (know Micropur tablets?). Maybe it's not your acidic chemistry but rather bacterial poop that eats the brass.
..... bacterial poop .....
I cannot find that technical term in wikipedia :O
Swisspedia only deals with bacterial GAS attacks - that's why our cheese is full of holes (I kid you not).
But seriously - what do Bacteria do when their bowels are full?