A few comments, and perhaps corrections as I understand things... The reason that the red rouge gets left is that traditional buffing compounds are an abrasive embedded in wax. It only cuts effectively when it is liquid, but a spinning wheel will melt the compound very quickly. But you will always leave some residue on the piece, and since you are leaving wax, it will stay if you don't remove it. To remove it, you need to use a vapor degreaser. A vapor degreaser makes use of an extremely volatile chemical, that evaporates the dirt away. These chemicals are typically liquid at room temp but vapor at around 130 degrees. A vapor degreasing machine is a large tank that has heaters in the bottom, and refirgerators on top. At the bottom, the chemical is heated until it is a gas. You dip the horn into this gas, and it literally melts the wax off the instrument and carries it into the air. The the cooling area above the vapor cools it down to where it turns into a liquid again, precipitates down, and doesn't escape the (open!) tank. These machines are not common because they cost around 30k. I have an early Ferree's manual where they explain that you cannot, and should not, use red rouge unless you have access to one of these machines, because otherwise the compound won't come off. People seem to have forgotten that, and as you describe, red rouge can be the bane of refurbished horns. Incidentally, I know old timers who were in the Elkhart scene. When you "sent a horn to the factory" back in the day, they jobbed it right out to freelancers working out of their garages in Elkhart. There was never a time when horns were relaquered in factory assembly lines. If you want to cut and color buff correctly without leaving residue, there are now buffing compounds on the market that are water soluble instead of wax based, so you can clean the parts properly in a small shop. I recommend Luxi brand compounds which you can get from Rio Grande.
I was actually referring to the early 1900s through maybe 1950 or so, when it was absolutely real and common (you can find information about this in old ads) to crate up your horn and send it back to the factory for a refurbishment. When lacquer was widely introduced in the 1920s, refinishing during these refurbishments became an expectation if there was wear. The time you are talking about is more when the bad stuff was already happening, and those relacquers are super easy to spot. Good info on the vapor degreaser. "Hot acid" was a gross oversimplification 😆. Also good recommendation on those water based buffing compounds for modern usage. Do you relacquer instruments?
@@StohrerMusic I've never done a relacquer job myself, but I do a decent amount of spot lacquering for PC work and I am always trying to improve my skills in that area. I try to learn as much as I can about best practice for various operations... especially since your average shop is often not set up for "best practice", so I often catch myself thinking "how would I be doing this if I had my way..." Often times there are well known techniques among engineers and machinists that don't make it into the industry because no one is consulting the books. But I've known old timers who weren't afraid to try someting new so my motto is always be learning. Have learned a lot from your videos, so thanks for all the info you've shared. My current position has me doing mostly all-around PC work, but I've overhauled some vintage Conns and Martins in my day to good results. I'm not a fan of relacquering but I very much like the idea of taking lacquered horns back to bare metal, without buffing. I haven't had the chance to experiment with a hot tank but a few of my own horns might get this treatment someday. I think bare brass is beautiful, and in some cases a buff and silver plate aren't totally out of line. Although most consider silver plating outside the realm of the small shop there are much less dangerous electrolytes that still produce like 99.5% of the shine or something like that. Saw a very simple setup in a Clickspring video once.
So my dad was a manufacturing jeweller, had his workshop back of the family home, he'd use a lot of red rouge in polishing gold rings etc with a home-made buffing wheel. Clean up would be ammonia (possibly diluted with as much pure soap (Velvet brand here in Australia) dissolved in it as possible, super cloudy, it was like jelly when cool. Heated up (small stainless bowl over a ring burner) till pretty hot, well and truly gets rouge and all great etc off, small toothbrush for a bit of mechanical agitation help, then a quick rinse in clean water. Yep, the fumes would make your eyes water.. but it is an extremely effective way to thoroughly clean these sorts of residues. I actually ended up working with him for a cpl of years before running away to play sax....
Great video as always, Matt. Just want to add that while I've never seen red rouge on an original Selmer, the HN White factory wasn't as thorough with cleaning it off so it's not uncommon to see red rouge on original Cleveland-built Kings.
This damage is possible to repair by leveling tone holes, doing a mechanical restoration of the key work, fitting the neck, etc. But it is often not repaired, or repaired poorly - perhaps because it is time consuming and therefore expensive to do so. But relacquered horn that has been repaired well will play very well. It will just have cost more to get it repaired, and be worth less afterwards anyways. So it is not very desirable. But can you work around it? Yes. Does it actually alter the tone in some magical way? No. It is all firmly rooted in reality and the (repairable, to a greater or lesser degree, depending) mechanical damage that is done by taking an abrasive wheel to a precision instrument.
@@StohrerMusic I have a horn that looks exactly like that, I understood that its bad for the horn, should i do anything about it? Like removing the lacquer?
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A few comments, and perhaps corrections as I understand things...
The reason that the red rouge gets left is that traditional buffing compounds are an abrasive embedded in wax. It only cuts effectively when it is liquid, but a spinning wheel will melt the compound very quickly. But you will always leave some residue on the piece, and since you are leaving wax, it will stay if you don't remove it.
To remove it, you need to use a vapor degreaser. A vapor degreaser makes use of an extremely volatile chemical, that evaporates the dirt away. These chemicals are typically liquid at room temp but vapor at around 130 degrees. A vapor degreasing machine is a large tank that has heaters in the bottom, and refirgerators on top. At the bottom, the chemical is heated until it is a gas. You dip the horn into this gas, and it literally melts the wax off the instrument and carries it into the air. The the cooling area above the vapor cools it down to where it turns into a liquid again, precipitates down, and doesn't escape the (open!) tank. These machines are not common because they cost around 30k.
I have an early Ferree's manual where they explain that you cannot, and should not, use red rouge unless you have access to one of these machines, because otherwise the compound won't come off. People seem to have forgotten that, and as you describe, red rouge can be the bane of refurbished horns.
Incidentally, I know old timers who were in the Elkhart scene. When you "sent a horn to the factory" back in the day, they jobbed it right out to freelancers working out of their garages in Elkhart. There was never a time when horns were relaquered in factory assembly lines.
If you want to cut and color buff correctly without leaving residue, there are now buffing compounds on the market that are water soluble instead of wax based, so you can clean the parts properly in a small shop. I recommend Luxi brand compounds which you can get from Rio Grande.
I was actually referring to the early 1900s through maybe 1950 or so, when it was absolutely real and common (you can find information about this in old ads) to crate up your horn and send it back to the factory for a refurbishment. When lacquer was widely introduced in the 1920s, refinishing during these refurbishments became an expectation if there was wear. The time you are talking about is more when the bad stuff was already happening, and those relacquers are super easy to spot.
Good info on the vapor degreaser. "Hot acid" was a gross oversimplification 😆. Also good recommendation on those water based buffing compounds for modern usage. Do you relacquer instruments?
@@StohrerMusic I've never done a relacquer job myself, but I do a decent amount of spot lacquering for PC work and I am always trying to improve my skills in that area. I try to learn as much as I can about best practice for various operations... especially since your average shop is often not set up for "best practice", so I often catch myself thinking "how would I be doing this if I had my way..." Often times there are well known techniques among engineers and machinists that don't make it into the industry because no one is consulting the books. But I've known old timers who weren't afraid to try someting new so my motto is always be learning. Have learned a lot from your videos, so thanks for all the info you've shared.
My current position has me doing mostly all-around PC work, but I've overhauled some vintage Conns and Martins in my day to good results. I'm not a fan of relacquering but I very much like the idea of taking lacquered horns back to bare metal, without buffing. I haven't had the chance to experiment with a hot tank but a few of my own horns might get this treatment someday. I think bare brass is beautiful, and in some cases a buff and silver plate aren't totally out of line. Although most consider silver plating outside the realm of the small shop there are much less dangerous electrolytes that still produce like 99.5% of the shine or something like that. Saw a very simple setup in a Clickspring video once.
So my dad was a manufacturing jeweller, had his workshop back of the family home, he'd use a lot of red rouge in polishing gold rings etc with a home-made buffing wheel. Clean up would be ammonia (possibly diluted with as much pure soap (Velvet brand here in Australia) dissolved in it as possible, super cloudy, it was like jelly when cool. Heated up (small stainless bowl over a ring burner) till pretty hot, well and truly gets rouge and all great etc off, small toothbrush for a bit of mechanical agitation help, then a quick rinse in clean water. Yep, the fumes would make your eyes water.. but it is an extremely effective way to thoroughly clean these sorts of residues. I actually ended up working with him for a cpl of years before running away to play sax....
Great video as always, Matt. Just want to add that while I've never seen red rouge on an original Selmer, the HN White factory wasn't as thorough with cleaning it off so it's not uncommon to see red rouge on original Cleveland-built Kings.
Is it purely cosmetic?
Matt, how do you truly feel about relacquered/buffed horns? Do you think they lose harmonic/sonic depth compared to how they came from the factory?
No. I think they get mechanically damaged (toneholes, post faces, hinge tube faces, key cup edges, neck tenons) by buffing and then not repaired well.
This damage is possible to repair by leveling tone holes, doing a mechanical restoration of the key work, fitting the neck, etc. But it is often not repaired, or repaired poorly - perhaps because it is time consuming and therefore expensive to do so.
But relacquered horn that has been repaired well will play very well. It will just have cost more to get it repaired, and be worth less afterwards anyways.
So it is not very desirable. But can you work around it? Yes. Does it actually alter the tone in some magical way? No. It is all firmly rooted in reality and the (repairable, to a greater or lesser degree, depending) mechanical damage that is done by taking an abrasive wheel to a precision instrument.
@@StohrerMusic really appreciate that concise reply
How do you remove it?
@@samibatescoff1619 usually it is under the re-lacquer, so you don't.
@@StohrerMusic I have a horn that looks exactly like that, I understood that its bad for the horn, should i do anything about it?
Like removing the lacquer?