TromboneChat

Any advice on how to dislodge a stuck tuning slide? I’d be happy to take it in but the techs require a 4-day quarantine before they touch it (although we now know that the virus is not spread through surface contact).

Why is it stuck? Is it dented? Corroded? Is something bent? A combination of causes? All these questions need to be answered before an attempt is made to free the slide. In the meantime, penetrating oil inside and out will do no harm.

I had stuck valve slides on a trumpet. I put some penetrating oil on them and let it sit overnight. I then tried the old "loop a towel through the tuning slide and tug on it" trick, worked on two of them but not the last one. I was able to push the last one in a bit tapping with the palm of my hand, which broke loose whatever was holding it in place, then it came out with the towel. Be patient - too much force will make the situation worse. Good luck!

Please, take it to your repair guy (or gal). To many things can go terribly wrong if you try it your self. I made a lot of money over the years fixing other people's mistakes!

If it has no dents and stuck because it was left in a closet for years and old greese became hard there is a solution you can try at home. Take wd-40 and spray it on the borders where the tuning slide goes into the bell section, so the wd oil will go inside. Leave it for a few hours, than take a torch or a turbo lighter and carefully and gently warm up from the outside the place where oil had spread in the tuning slide (be careful, it may damage the lacquer if you will heat up for too long). Then try to take it out, pulling and shaking a little. If it still stuck, try again spraying more wd-40, leave for a night, and heating it after.
It helped for my yamaha 651.

Thermal expansion can work. Get a bucket of ice water. Pour ice water down into the bell, then immerse the tuning slide end of the bell in the bucket. Let it sit for 20 minutes. Get some hot water ready.

Pull the bell out. Quickly pour out the inside water, then pour the hot water over just the outer "sleeve" portion of the assembly. Try pulling the slide.

I have done this and it has worked several times.


If it is seriously corrosion-stuck, PB Blaster is what you want. It's more than just an oil.

It is miraculous on rusted auto part bolts I thought would never come loose and it works on brass slides too. I got an old tuba on ebay with one valve stuck and every slide stuck and it got those going again.

https://www.google.com/search?client=fi ... PB+Blaster

Spray it into every crevice and opening to the stuck part you can access and let the thing sit for a day (outside!). You might need to repeat that several times.




In actual practice I usually did the PB Blaster first (because it is easier) and if that did not appear to succeed I did the thermal treatment. But maybe the PB Blaster loosened it enough for the thermal treatment to be the last nudge it needed. Hard to know which one did most of the work.

Of course, if your horn is highly valuable, you'll probably want to just take it to the repair guy and wait.

I tend to wreck stuff. Off to the tech I think.

Bach5G wrote: ↑Tue Jun 08, 2021 9:52 am I tend to wreck stuff. Off to the tech I think.

Good decision.

My K&H Slokar has had a stuck F attachment slide for years. I've tried everything - including soaking in PBBlaster and other things for a week at a time, torch to warm it up, cold, vibration, twisting - no luck. It's tuned where I want it so I gave up.

Doug Elliott wrote: ↑Tue Jun 08, 2021 11:12 am My K&H Slokar has had a stuck F attachment slide for years. I've tried everything - including soaking in PBBlaster and other things for a week at a time, torch to warm it up, cold, vibration, twisting - no luck. It's tuned where I want it so I gave up.

Maybe it was set at the factory

I got a stuck f-attachment slide on a used 50B that I bought recently. I was going to give it a good cleaning anyhow, so I removed the rotor and stuck the bell section upside down in a bucket of hot soapy water and let it soak for a few hours. The tuning slide came out fairly easily afterwards.

Good thing I took it in. I watched him as he worked. It did not come out easily. Some sort of heat source, mallet, brutane.

Bach5G wrote: ↑Tue Jun 08, 2021 12:54 pm Good thing I took it in. I watched him as he worked. It did not come out easily. Some sort of heat source, mallet, brutane.

Well I just learned a terrifying new word

https://medical-dictionary.thefreedicti ... om/brutane

Useful if somebody wants to watch you work on their horn.

I once dropped an M-80 down the bell throat of a Bach 50B. I didn't have a stuck slide after that...

Doug Elliott wrote: ↑Tue Jun 08, 2021 11:12 am My K&H Slokar has had a stuck F attachment slide for years. I've tried everything - including soaking in PBBlaster and other things for a week at a time, torch to warm it up, cold, vibration, twisting - no luck. It's tuned where I want it so I gave up.

Sometimes things are stuck stuck. I have a slide extension for a 50B that is similarly stuck. All of these plus hours in an ultrasonic tester... both leg extensions were stuck to start, now only one is. One of these days I will go back and spend more hours trying to fix that. If it were the only tuning for the horn, I would do that now. As is... Maybe next year?

Cheers,
Andy

SOMEtimes, main tuning slides have a bit of flex that can break loose stuck tubes.

Give it a gentle but firm "squeeze" to slightly twist the tuning slide.

If that doesn't work, it's tech time!

By the time I got the horn home the slide had stuck again. I managed to get it out, cleaned it and applied some Ultra Pure tuning slide grease that Joe Alessi gave me. (Really. I just couldn’t resist a bit of name dropping!). Hopefully that will fix this.

BGuttman wrote: ↑Tue Jun 08, 2021 11:25 am

Doug Elliott wrote: ↑Tue Jun 08, 2021 11:12 am My K&H Slokar has had a stuck F attachment slide for years. I've tried everything - including soaking in PBBlaster and other things for a week at a time, torch to warm it up, cold, vibration, twisting - no luck. It's tuned where I want it so I gave up.

Maybe it was set at the factory

I'm reminded of some trumpets (made in another land) that only appeared to have tuning slides.

robcat2075 wrote: ↑Wed Jun 09, 2021 9:16 am
I'm reminded of some trumpets (made in another land) that only appeared to have tuning slides.