Posted by Home Repairs on August 24, 2001 at 23:54:57:
In Reply to: Re: How Does One Unstick Valves? posted by Sean Chisham on August 23, 2001 at 19:49:16:
Thanks, everyone for all of your tips!
I gave this very black horn a bath, and got most of the soot off. It looked as though it had been in a fire. The slides are stuck, but I think I'll leave that for a repairman!
I should clarify about my valve question; by "sticking", I meant that if you pushed the piston down, the valve didn't come back up right away. It just sort of stayed down, and only came up slowly, if at all. I washed out the valve casings, and the valves, and now they all move freely. Thanks! I can't tell if they need a replating or not; we'll wait to see what a repairman says. I'm only trying out these things because (a) I find it interesting (b) now's "back to school" time, and all of the repairpeople have their collective hands full with school horns, and can't take the time to look at this horn for another couple weeks!
I also started polishing the gunk off the horn with "Nevr-Dull", a 'magic wadding compound' meant for car chrome. I was thrilled to find out that under the black there's a beautiful shiny silver-plated horn with gold wash inside the bell, gold wash around the bell collar, and gold wash in the bell engraving! Who knows - when I polish the valve casings and the body tubing, maybe there'll be more gold in them thar hills.
Thanks again for the tips and your indulgence.