Musings on Oiling Rotary Valves, and Brief Review: JM ...

A new lubricant line for horn players to consider is the line of products by JM Lubricants. Manufactured by J. Meinlschmidt GmbH, a company that has produced rotary valves since 1866, the line has a similar range of types as the popular Hetman oils.

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Science, and the horn player

My first band director used to say that all valve oil was from a big vat, and all of it was about the same. Back then in the mid 1970s, with standard types of traditional oil, he probably was correct to a point.

With the modern synthetic oils available today, however, this is not true, and anyway, with rotary valves you always needed to have a couple different grades of oil to properly service your valves.

As a student and in the early days of my career my personal “go to” oils were Al Cass Fast oil down the valves and either woodwind key oil or Singer sewing machine oil on the bearings. Those were common choices back then, but today we do have better choices.

Many horn players today seem to be attracted to the “scientific” lines of oils with many grades of oil to choose from – more so than players of other brass instruments.

One of the reasons why the JM Lubricants line is of interest, and why it was developed, is because it is similar to the popular Hetman line. As I understand it Hetman oil not off the market, but it has become more difficult to obtain the past few years. The new JM Lubricants line fills in the same market niche and is one horn players will want to check out.

For my tests I was able to obtain (from Houghton Horns) the types in the photo! With no obligation to review.

Which leads me toward a bigger topic I want to address today:

What does valve oil do? How often do you need to oil your valves?

I recently was reminded by something on Horn People of a way to think of rotary valves and oil. Essentially, imagine it this way: your valve is floating (rotating!) in a layer of oil. Oil is what keeps it all moving well.

You need to use typically somewhat heavier oil on the top and bottom bearings, and lighter oil on the rotor itself (most commonly oiled by dropping oil carefully down the valve slide tubes).

But again, to repeat, your valves float in oil. Which means you need to oil your valves often! At least every week! And use good oil! Your horn will play better and your investment is better protected.

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You may actually need to oil even more often than weekly. My original double horn, a Holton 177, worked best if I oiled the valves thoroughly every single day. Of course, that was in part because the Al Cass oil I primarily used was so light. In general though, weekly is probably enough for most horns, if you use a high quality, modern oil.

Did Dave have something to say about lubrication?

Back ten years ago we had a regular series of articles on Horn Matters that asked Dave Weiner questions relating to horn maintenance and more. Specifically, his general answer to the question on oil is that you should certainly oil your valves every week at a minimum. More specifically, heavier oil on the bearings weekly and a drop of rotor oil down in the rotors daily. By the time your valves are getting slow, that is long after when you should have oiled your valves. For more details, see this article:

Some further general advice

One other trap to mention is this: just because your horn has rotary valves it does not mean that you have to use rotor oil as the main lubricant. It depends on the tightness of your valves. A horn with very tight, new, high-quality valves may feel sluggish with a standard grade of rotor oil, as it is a bit too thick. On the other hand, a horn with well broken in or worn valves may need an even heavier oil in general to keep things spinning smoothly. Your oil should not slow you down! But it does need to overall be thick enough to do the job of keeping your valve floating in that sea of oil.

I would also mention horns in storage. Certainly when you put it in storage be sure it is oiled up very well with somewhat heavy oil, that will save much trouble down the road.

Is it the new JM oil compatible?

Sometimes there are compatibility issues from brand to brand. An incompatible oil can cause a gummy residue to form. Myself, in my testing so far, I have had no issues using JM lubricants on valves that had been previously lubricated with Hetman products and with standard types of Monster valve oil, another brand of oil which I have also made good use of in recent years. If I note any issues I will update this post.

Have you oiled your valves lately?

Well, you should! At least every week! Protect the investment in your horn.

Finally, there is no danger of using too much oil. If you are low on oil and having trouble buying what you have used in the past, think about trying the JM Lubricants line, it is well worth a look.

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