And there were fumes...

I've been meaning to clean my horn1 for about the past year, ever since I noticed that it was the leadpipe and not the mouthpiece that smelled a little interesting.2 But since cleaning the leadpipe requires substantially more effort than cleaning the mouthpiece, I've been putting it off and putting it off and then justifying putting it off because I didn't want to risk completely screwing it up. But then there was the period in which I didn't play from the end of October to the middle of March…3

When I finally picked up my poor horn again, all the valves had frozen – copious amounts of valve oil got them going again but the Bb valve did kept getting stuck (which was inconvenient since I was playing something with a lot of middle Gs and F#s). Talking shop during rehearsals with a friendly fellow horn player convinced me that washing the horn out wasn't beyond my capabilities – so after putting it off for another couple of months, I took advantage of the long weekend and rehearsal-free Monday to take the plunge.

Some brief web-trawling provided some helpful hints on horn-cleaning and the recipe for a potent cocktail of leadpipe disinfectant: 5 parts Dettol, 1 part Listerine and 4 parts water.4

Gathered supplies + disassembled horn.

Once my supplies were gathered, I disassembled my horn and submerged it in my conveniently sized mini-bath.

Bubbles!

The slides were all snaked out with the bendy botttlebrush. I was actually kind of crushed that no goop came out of the leadpipe. After all, the first time I ever cleaned out my student Yamaha 567, I ended up with a 6-inch piece of green slime! (That sort of thing does give you bragging rights of a kind…) But, since the leadpipe stank so much, I Dettol-ed the horn anyway. And the slides too for good measure.

(Please ignore the accidental cleavage in this shot.)

Then I was quite excited to find that the shower head actually came off my flexible shower head attachment. Which meant that to clean out the Dettol mixture from the horn, all I had to do was whack the pipe onto the leadpipe and turn on the tap. (That part was fun!)

(Then, I thought "why not?"… and brought out the Brasso. Meaning that not one, but TWO cleaning products were endorsed by the Queen!5This was the point in the process where the window was opened up wide and the fan was put on. Dettol + Listerine + washing up liquid + Brasso = OMG! FUMES!!)

Finally, I oiled and greased it all up and put it all back together.

End result: shiny horn! (Plus cat.)

The valves work better than they have in ages and, once I actually used the Unibal oil on the key mechanisms, they are quieter than I remember them being in years!

There is of course a downside – there's still a definite odour of Dettol. (I'm leaving it out to air in the hope that the fumes will have dissipated by my next rehearsal.)

1It's an Alexander 1103. It's somewhat battered but it's mine :)
2It wasn't completely festy and disgusting, but it wasn't altogether pleasant either.
3Shh. I had exams. And a hideous essay. And then work. And I was between orchestras. (OK, I'm a Bad Musician. I know.)
4See How not to clean your horn… for hilarity, good advice and some pain in sympathy. Also Adventures in horn hygiene for more good advice.
5Dettol is too.