Posted by Sean Chisham on March 24, 1999 at 10:12:15:
In Reply to: Re: Rotary Valves Problem posted by Gary on March 24, 1999 at 09:03:55:
That is part of the puzzle. Another part is that the valve oil going down the tuning slides also took some grease with it. Valve oil will usually break down slide grease and contaminate valves. Alisyn is also notorious for later causing weird chemical reactions with non-synthetics and "gumming" up valves. The slide grease on your new horn is probably a non-synthetic. So in several departments you need to clean out the horn.
I don't play rotars at this time, but when I did I never oiled my valves. They always seemed to work very smoothly without extra valve oil. Maybe this is hard on the spindle over time, but I will leave that to the brass repairman on the BBS to address. Anytime I tried to smooth out the action of my rotars by addressing the rotars themselves, I always had bad results. Smooth action on rotars has much more to do with the maintenance of the linkage system then the valve.
On pistons I have had pretty good luck with a combination of Hetman valve oil for the valves and the cheapo slide grease which is red and comes in the square squeeze bottles you used in Jr. High band. That stuff seems to last a long time and doesn't react with the Hetman oil. If you are a "slide puller" then the red grease may not work for you as it is fairly thick and makes any slide movements slow.
sean