Sax on the Web Forum banner

Solutions for cleaning metal mouthpieces ??

3K views 10 replies 6 participants last post by  milandro 
#1 ·
Hi All
I have Lawton metal mouthpieces on both my Selmer Alto & Yanagisawa Tenor, whilst I am reasonably fastidous with drawing through and general after play cleaning, I am a very wet player. As a result there is a build up of very hard residue inside the upper part of the chambers . I dont want to risk scratching or scraping and risk damaging the mouthpieces and as they are gold plated am apprehensive about experimenting with soaking them in any solution until I am using something proven to do the trick without ruining their appearance or performance. Does anyone have any proven gunk they could recommend please ?
Thanks in anticipation
Stevie D - England
 
#3 ·
The hard stuff is usually limescale or something similar. I've found a good method of dealing with this which is to use a product used for cleaning the inside of dish washer machines - i.e not the stuff for cleaning dishes.

I also use an ultrasonic cleaner I'd picked up cheap. Using some warm water, the dishwasher cleaner and a drip of washing up liquid gets them really clean. Works very well on metal and plastic but avoid putting ebonite in warm water as it'll discolour.

Give the mouthpiece a good rinse and go over it with an old toothbrush to shift any softened gunk.
 
#7 ·
malt (brown) vinegar is coloured with caramel (= sugar) and white malt vinegar isn't and it is not more expensive than brown malt vinegar . You can use and re-use, other acid products for de-scaling, like the ones that you use for your coffee machine or percolator.
 
#10 ·
... white malt vinegar ... is not more expensive than brown malt vinegar .
Another reason to move to the Netherlands - white vinegar costs the same as brown. :D

Soaking a small wad of cotton wool or pice of cloth in vinegar and placing it inside the chamber rather than soaking the whole mouthpiece will do the trick without causing any discolouration to the outside. (I Got that tip off Stephen Howard)
That's what I do too, and put it in a plastic bag to slow evaporation. Haven't done it with metal pieces though.
 
#9 ·
....yep and soak it for a suitably long time I might add (Stephen Howard is a very good writer ) ! However, like in this case, if the mouthpiece is metal (as the original poster stated) you could do with relatively shorter soaking time (metal holds less residue than hard and rough rubber which seems to bind with the dreaded stuff) and possibly (if the metal is suitable for this purpose) with a full immersion in vinegar, possibly trying to protect the the biteplate if there's any.
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top