Posted by tubatheorist on March 12, 2001 at 21:01:07:
In Reply to: Caring for new horn posted by un-enlightened on March 12, 2001 at 20:17:36:
Congratulations on the new horn! I am speaking from experience here because I just got my own 21 two months ago tomorrow (:
The first thing I do to try to protect my horn, (may be excessive), is that I refuse to sit it down on the bell on any hard surface. I always sit it on a towel if it must rest on a hard floor. This doesn't really matterin the silver versus lacquer I guess, but my experience has been with my other silver horn, the finish showed scratches much more easily. Also on that vein, when I am sitting on hard chair or bench, I keep a towel underneath the bow to protect it.
One thing about the 21 you might find is that your condensation drips out of the leadpipe onto the bell when you sit it down. when this happens, I wipe the bell dry with a soft cloth. I have found this to be the biggest cause for "dirty spots" on my silver.
Whenever I get done playing, (most of the time), I take the cloth and wipe off fingerprints. Someone saw me in the practice room exhaling warm air onto my horn to make it a little easier to wipe down, and they looked in the window like they thought I was insane. This works really well though, and so far I've been fairly religious about taking care of my horn. It may look crazy and excessive, but spending this much money on something so important to me, I think it is worth it! (I was afraid to take the thing out of the plastic when I got it!)
Good luck!