NON-ABRASIVE Cleaning and removing tarnish from silver trumpet

This is a great NON-ABRASIVE method for removing tarnish from any SILVER trumpet.
It is an electrochemical process which "undoes" the tarnish buildup by reversing the chemical process which put the tarnish on the horn to begin with. The procedure and technical explanation is in the video.
It took me about 20 minutes to setup the equipment and about 15 minute to remove all tarnish from the horn.
IMPORTANT NOTE: THIS ONLY WORKS WITH SILVER (Plated or Sterling OK) trumpets which ARE NOT LACQUERED.
It will not work with lacquered, brass, copper, nickle, or gold-plated horns!

[@prblakeslee]

After 7 years, trumpet tarnish needs to be removed again. Great results again. Trumpet worked well for my son all through his school years.

[@erikpygott5556]

I just did this with my Bach Strad and it's amazing! I got a real long piece of foil to fully wrap my trumpet and let it soak for 30 minutes. Came back and the foil was grayish-black and my trumpet was nice and shiny again. Thanks!

[@D.AlmightyPizza]

Just did this today and my trumpet looks great used it on my Yamaha Xeno if anyone is curious on using it on theirs :)

[@raudel101]

How long does the instrument have to be in the water?

[@marccroft3328]

Thank you! Just did my teapot and it worked in all the decorative details much better the silver wipes

[@rtichenberg]

Thank you so much for this awesome information; for taking the time to do so; many thanks on behalf of those of us who own stock in Tarn-X !!!

[@Levatron]

Paul Blakeslee, your a genious. I just resurrected my my badly tarnished and very expensive silver coated harmonicas Suzuki Fabulous F64C and several diatonics F-20Es with you very simple procedure. Thanks also for 'Nothing else matters' one of my all time favourites. Seamus

[@mandyjayne1757]

Levatron what if there is just a little tarnish? i havr a trumpet that's not too bad but it has some darker spots. Will it only work if the full instrument is tarnished? I don't want to ruin my Getzen 907s Eterna Proteus...

[@lawrencenolte4112]

Just did this on a Jupiter XO, worked perfectly (all the tarnish around the bell is now gone). Thank you way better than using chemicals (which I had done in the past on an old instrument).

[@andileskosana4593]

👏👏👏Much appreciated. Did it and had amazing results! Thank you.

[@jazzmunky]

Thanks for this demonstration.

[@LooneytoonsIndville]

WOW, thanks for the demo!!!!

[@lystrung5437]

If you want to know if it worked, then yes it did. It got rid of all the brown spots that even started to turn blue in some spots. Great work, thanks!

[@raudel101]

How long does the instrument have to be in the water?

[@lystrung5437]

@@raudel101 I leave it there for half an hour just about.

[@raudel101]

@@lystrung5437 Thank youuu

[@trumpet6311]

I was nervous to do this on my Yamaha Xeno as I was afraid it would go wrong, but it was successful! I’m amazed with the results! Looks new! I recommend doing it too.

[@raudel101]

How long does the instrument have to be in the water?

[@thomasyoung7615]

Worked Thank you so much I have to do it loads tho as it did not take it all off.

[@andrewsworkshop]

You sound really smart

[@paulgrimm6850]

That’s amazing

[@John-tj9mt]

I tried a couple times. Worked great just a couple nights ago after I bought this Strad that was very badly tarnished, some surfaces were dark green. This process helped it to look shinny silver again. Thanks Paul.

[@brandongarza413]

so can i do this with my bach stradivarious 37 trumpet that is silver plated?!?

[@mandyjayne1757]

John Yu what if there is just a little tarnish? i havr a trumpet that's not too bad but it has some darker spots. Will it only work if the full instrument is tarnished? I don't want to ruin my Getzen 907s Eterna Proteus...

[@John-tj9mt]

If it is silver, it will work regardless. Have since done a few more. Great process.

[@mandyjayne1757]

thank you!

[@John-tj9mt]

Your welcome. Wrap foil well for better effect especially the badly tarnished areas.

[@andrewsworkshop]

All I can say is "wow!"

[@lewis2871]

I did this with my silver marching baritone. It works!

[@raudel101]

How long does the instrument have to be in the water?

[@lewis2871]

@@raudel101 oh, sorry it's been so long I can't even remember

[@raudel101]

@@lewis2871 Its alright

[@martinpuig86]

what if there's already raw brass spots on the trumpet? what may be the effect on them?

[@brandoncho4933]

Paul Blakeskee do I need to take out any other part besides the three valves?

[@mandyjayne1757]

what if there is just a little tarnish? i have a trumpet that's not too bad but it has some darker spots. Will it only work if the full instrument is tarnished? I don't want to ruin my Getzen 907s Eterna Proteus...

[@GigaPangolin]

Does anyone have any solutions for tarnish on a non-silver brass trumpet? I'm fine with buying something like brasso, but I am a newbie and I don't want to potentially ruin it. When I google I see some people say lemon juice works, but I also see that people also use baking soda, which OP says I should not do.

[@prblakeslee]

Lacquering is a clear plastic coating used on some silver colored instruments. This method WILL NOT clean it, and could damage the lacquer finish.

[@michaelp6794]

Forgive my ignorance, but I inherited a trumpet from my father so I don't know if it is lacquered. It's a 1937 Henri Selmer that has been in my family since it was new. If the trumpet is lacquered will this process hurt the trumpet? Also, how do I remove grease? Dip the horn in soapy (Dawn) water first I guess?

[@spencerfitzgerald5955]

Will this process work if a yellow stain is in the silver plating?

[@jordansanjose2209]

Will it work with a silver sonic king trombone?

[@KennyzBay]

Great, it seems it works just fine. I would use this process for tarnished metal clarinets. It is not necessary to add salt as I saw on others videos?

[@bethanyrachel6882]

Would this work with a silver saxophone?

[@brettpait9206]

If a silver plated trumpet is severely tarnished would repeating this process be safe?

[@alanartz]

Do we use boiling water, hot water or cold water

[@MrStarbor]

wow!!!!

[@glennrudolph3863]

Used this technique on a tarnished Getzen Cornet and it worked great. I do have a question: as a musician, my background in chemistry is naturally limited, but I do remember that electricity travels from positive to negative. Would this process work even better if you hooked up dry cell batteries - positive to the horn body, negative to the foil while the horn is submerged in the solution?

[@prblakeslee]

Not sure.....be careful though because you may end up electro-plating the aluminum with silver from the trumpet (thus removing silver!).

[@RaeOfLiv]

I may be a little late to the party, but I do have a chemistry background - with an electrochemical process like this, essentially what is happening is silver is starting off as an ion (because it's bonded to sulfur) and then being turned back into a non-charged metal without the sulfur. Aluminium is starting as a metal, and being converted to an ion, and the sulfur is moving across from the silver to the aluminium. In this case, this reaction happens spontaneously, because aluminium has a greater affinity for sulfur than silver does. You would normally only need to apply a charge to get a non-spontaneous reaction to happen, and you definitely run the risk of making a non-spontanous reaction happen instead by applying a current. Tbh, I wouldn't recommend. If you want to make this reaction faster, just make sure your water is really hot. I've got a Getzen too that's looking a little worse for wear. Excited to try this out!

[@jqsmooth77]

I also have a Getzen trumpet that I used play in high school. Going to try this method.

[@KevinFreitas]

Awesome, going to try this on a couple small trumpet parts first to test it. Have a badly tarnished silver 1930s sousaphone, too, but that's going to be a pretty big tub of water. :( Any tips for doing this w/out full submersion?

[@isai1625]

+Kevin Freitas Well what i did with my marching eupho is i dipped it section by section

[@KevinFreitas]

Yeah, worked pretty well overall. Will be trying this on a couple older silver trumpets too.

[@declanthiele]

+Kevin Freitas I have a century old trumpet two-thirds quite a bit of tarnish on it. it looks like it has been well taken care of, but some of the base metal is showing on all of the tuning slides. fortunately it doesn't ruin the look of all of the trumpet. some of the base metal is actually nicely shown in some of the places, which brings me to believe someone tried to manipulate where it was in some way... it's still an interesting trumpet.

[@thomasyoung7615]

that was the same with my trumpet it used to be my great grandmas trumpet trying the trick in the video.

[@Bethaudiobooks]

does it work with a trombone mouthpiece

[@yesmaam6842]

Will this work on a trumpet that only has just a few little spots of tarnish? Or does the whole horn have to be tarnished?

[@dome3514]

ill say whole trumpet because if only a few spots the not really heavy tarnish will be visible

[@prblakeslee]

If it is silver plated brass, then yes. If it is brass finish (gold color) it will NOT WORK

[@carlosreyes3528]

What is the recommended time to keep the horn submerged?

[@carlosreyes3528]

And does the amount of baking soda effect any thing? If I tried this on an old silver trombone how much do I put?

[@lewis2871]

I will try this on my marching baritone. It's bad.

[@tedc6694]

I have a blessing b and a J Callet i think ill try this on. Music place wanted over $100 to clean each. Yikes. But for a trumpet that cost over $1000 i dont think rubbing it to death myself is something i wanna do. I think this sounds safe

[@kevgregrob2]

Will this damage a lacquered horn? How would I know of it was silver or lacquered?

[@Glockodile]

This will not work on lacquer

[@mitchhardy1]

How do I know if my trumpet has a laquer finish (1 year old yamaha xeno)

[@brendanbreen6962]

Mitchell Hardy I have the same trumpet and I love it and it does I reccomend a silver polishing cloth don't do it will ruin the laquer

[@RoliPoliOli00]

I want to try this with my king silver flair but im not sure if its silver plated or silver covered in laquer

[@kyledugger]

Roland Cadiz Silver horns are RARELY lacquered.

[@jhewell]

+Roland Cadiz King Silver Flairs ARE clear lacquered finish. Do not do this to a Silver Flair trumpet!

[@RoliPoliOli00]

I posted this comment like almost 3 years ago lol i didnt do this btw

[@TheNbBuilderTheNbBuilder]

So what did you do? I am in the same boat.

[@RoliPoliOli00]

TheN00bBuilder TheN00bBuilder I just bought a polishing cloth and it solved the problem

[@abepeterson7045]

What if you trumpet has a little gold

[@The20thCenturyLimitedRickyB]

TARS 515 is it actual gold? anyways it just won't have the tarnish taken off

[@brandongarza413]

does this work on a silver bach strad?? im scared to try

[@TheOverdueTraveler]

Brandon, did you try it on your Bach? I have one too, but am scared to try. I'd love to hear your results!

[@baseballdude-is5ec]

TheOverdueTraveler it totally worked!!!

[@dome3514]

i am gonna do it with my bach... hope nothing goes wrong

[@BigHeroSixy]

How'd it go? I gotta clean my bach as well. I'm curious.

[@megasimp1024]

It should be fine as long as the water isn't too hot and you don't leave the horn submerged too long

[@litomanapul5993]

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[@rivermegan]

Um.. I tried it with my silver plated trumpet for the first time today and, I think it looks worse now. Brown spots have appeared on certain parts of it and it won't come off. I don't remember seeing those spots before I soaked it...

[@The20thCenturyLimitedRickyB]

Mel J. might be raw brass showing thru

[@Lalaland.001]

the brown spots if they are the brass or copper showing through you can use a silverplating solution to get it replated. I personaaly have gotten really good results with a product here in holland, called holland hallmark silver plater, I do think they take international orders. I have used it on my bach and it is a miracle. I hope that helps.

[@user-jg9vk9oq7l]

im scared to try it on my B&S Challenger 3137 does anyone know if it works?

[@Lalaland.001]

Yes it works on all silver non lacquer instruments, they use this method in museums to restore and polish non polishable objects. So your horn will be no problem. Make sure to use really hot water.

[@MrStarbor]

do I need any foil or heavy-duty one?

[@prblakeslee]

Any foil should work.

[@tonykuan9962]

Will this damage trumpet or trumpet sound?

[@famf6234]

Only baking soda? No salt?

[@prblakeslee]

I dont add salt.....it is not needed.

[@andreashader1452]

If I could add my 2 cents...I sell vintage silverplated flatware and use this method (which is a form of electrolysis where the tarnish is transferred to the foil). Technically baking soda IS salt, and I think dissolved salt works better. After soaking for a bit try rubbing the tarnish off with dry baking soda. I've never had the technique remove the plating, or even additional plating from a piece that already has plating damage. If you're not sure, try it on your mouthpiece first.

[@MarkGeelen78]

I’d pull the slides before emerging and rinse very well with just water afterwards. Then grease and oil everything up and put back together.

[@C2xEditor]

IF anyone has tried this with silver marching instruments please reply to me and tell me how it goes :D

[@timothywhite8130]

im thinking about doing this for my 1930s silver plated marching trombone hope it works

[@chelcyr24]

Will this work on brass instruments?