Posted by Lesley on March 05, 2002 at 02:00:31:
First of all, I would like to thank everyone for their suggestions on cleaning, polishing, ragging, and the like. I would now like to add a few of my own suggestions and observations for those of you out there who will be doing this for the first time, or enjoy laughing at people who just finished attempting it for the first time.
You will be wearing your dirtiest, nastiest clothes. I say this not necessarily as a suggestion, but as an absolute certainty. Even if you do not start out wearing your dirtiest, nastiest clothes, you will end up this way. Plan accordingly.
Along the same lines, nothing will get the dirt off your hands and fingernails after you have finished, except maybe 40 grit sandpaper. Or amputation. The dirst wears off in about a week.
If you’re thinking about when to polish your instrument, think summer. Think outside, with the hose and no drainage issues. Do not think winter. Do not think inside, in the tub. It’s no fun sitting in the bathtub with a dirty tuba in your lap, but it is still slightly more fun than falling into the bathtub on top of a dirty tuba.
Ragging a tuba is the only way to clean the whole thing, including all the inside tubing loops. I found that tearing off strips of old worn out t-shirt is the best way to get soft, gentle ragging cloths. Ragging a tuba is also rather like flossing an angry mastadon. If this mastadon is wet and dirty and covered in rapidly greying, slimy Hagartys silver polish, it is almost exactly like flossing an angry mastadon.
If you started out with a filty grey-black instrument like mine was (think garage sale instrument), and now it’s clean and gorgeous - all of the above was well worth it. Just remember - from now on, wash your hands before you touch the tuba and wipe it off quickly afterwards, and you won’t have to go through this ordeal very often!
happy ragging!
-Lesley