Turns out Polident has the organic acids for plaque removal AND detergents for cleaning. Leaving a minty-fresh after taste. I soak my mouthpieces in a small glass of water (tall enough to submerge the mouthpiece) and drop in a polident tablet. Come back some 3-4 hours later and brush it out with an old toothbrush or mouthpiece brush.
tried to clean my sax mouthpiece by leaving it in a 50/50 bleach and water mix overnight. stripped the finish off of it and started eat away at the rubber. i think vinegar might have been a better option.
A couple of points 1) Why would you use icky vinegar when you could be using refreshing lemon juice instead for the same chemical action? :) Also, the effects of long soaking are going to vary greatly by the composition of the rubber used in manufacturing the mouthpiece. I wouldn't take the results seen here as gospel for every mouthpiece. Older mouthpieces in particular are likely to be much more er, colorful after such treatment.
Lol, well said 😂🙃! Lemon juice would be more pleasant, wouldn’t it?! And very good point that this may not yield the same result with different mouthpieces - especially older ones as you said. Definitely would be fun to do a more “controlled” experiment in the future... 🤔
This is correct. I'd like to add a quick thought about this, with regards to composition of rubber. Have you ever seen a very old plastic mouthpiece with discoloration? No. Or at least, I haven't! Because plastic doesn't discolor. SO, if a mouthpiece does discolor (and especially if it produces a lovely orange-red or deep red-brown) that's an indication that few synthetics were used. I actually did an experiment and broke a plastic mouthpiece open, broke a Vandoren mouthpiece open, and the consistency of the material was surprisingly similar. Doing the same experiment with an old (poor) Buffet Chedeville produced such a different way of shattering. I need to do a video on this...breaking apart different mouthpieces, including D'Addario, Babbitts (like Pyne), certain CNC, to better look at the kind of material we're putting in our mouths. In conclusion (lol!), to anyone reading this...if you see a discolored mouthpiece, it might be a (very) good sign!
Takes the guess work out of cleaning it. Thank you.
Turns out Polident has the organic acids for plaque removal AND detergents for cleaning. Leaving a minty-fresh after taste. I soak my mouthpieces in a small glass of water (tall enough to submerge the mouthpiece) and drop in a polident tablet. Come back some 3-4 hours later and brush it out with an old toothbrush or mouthpiece brush.
tried to clean my sax mouthpiece by leaving it in a 50/50 bleach and water mix overnight. stripped the finish off of it and started eat away at the rubber. i think vinegar might have been a better option.
A couple of points 1) Why would you use icky vinegar when you could be using refreshing lemon juice instead for the same chemical action? :) Also, the effects of long soaking are going to vary greatly by the composition of the rubber used in manufacturing the mouthpiece. I wouldn't take the results seen here as gospel for every mouthpiece. Older mouthpieces in particular are likely to be much more er, colorful after such treatment.
Lol, well said 😂🙃! Lemon juice would be more pleasant, wouldn’t it?! And very good point that this may not yield the same result with different mouthpieces - especially older ones as you said. Definitely would be fun to do a more “controlled” experiment in the future... 🤔
This is correct. I'd like to add a quick thought about this, with regards to composition of rubber. Have you ever seen a very old plastic mouthpiece with discoloration? No. Or at least, I haven't! Because plastic doesn't discolor. SO, if a mouthpiece does discolor (and especially if it produces a lovely orange-red or deep red-brown) that's an indication that few synthetics were used.
I actually did an experiment and broke a plastic mouthpiece open, broke a Vandoren mouthpiece open, and the consistency of the material was surprisingly similar. Doing the same experiment with an old (poor) Buffet Chedeville produced such a different way of shattering. I need to do a video on this...breaking apart different mouthpieces, including D'Addario, Babbitts (like Pyne), certain CNC, to better look at the kind of material we're putting in our mouths.
In conclusion (lol!), to anyone reading this...if you see a discolored mouthpiece, it might be a (very) good sign!
what happens if you leave it in water?