Horn Care

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Flute Care

Your flute is finished on the outside with silver, nickel, or gold finishes. These metals need to be kept clean from finger perspiration and saliva if you want your flute to look new throughout many years of playing. The same care is needed for the inside wall of your flute. If you have purchased a new flute from Horn Hospital, L.L.C. that has a gold-plated inner wall, special care needs to be taken when cleaning your instrument. We have put together a cleaning kit for you to keep your flute looking new. It consists of a pad-saver/inside wall cleaner, polishing cloth for silver, key cleaning brushes, key oil, and cleaning swabs.

Clarinet Care

Your clarinet body is made of plastic or wood. The inside wall or bore of your clarinet must be kept clean if you expect your instrument to perform well. Air must flow smoothly through a clarinet. A quality drop-through swab is a must and a pad-saver will help keep the bore and pads in top condition. Your keys and body rings need to be cleaned regularly to keep the finish bright and smooth. A polishing cloth will help provide you with the factory new look. We have put together a special cleaning kit for your convenience to help you keep your clarinet in top condition.

Saxophone Care

Most saxophone bodies are brass with a lacquer coating to protect the high luster finish. You must clean and polish the lacquer to retain the like-new look of your sax. The keys of your instrument will be brass with a lacquered finish or will be nickel plated. (Most beginner saxophones have nickel plated keys.) If your keys are brass with a lacquered finish, you should clean and polish them just like your saxophone body. If your keys are nickel plated you need a polishing cloth made for nickel. Do NOT USE A POLISHING CLOTH MADE FOR NICKEL PLATED FINISHES ON THE BRASS WITH LACQUER FINISH. A pad-saver swab will help extend the life of your leather pads and will clean the inside wall of your sax at the same time. I have put together a special cleaning kit that will help you keep your saxophone looking great for a long time.

Trumpet / Trombone / Baritone / Euphonium Care

Brass instruments need special care as saliva can build up on the inside wall of your tubing especially at the solder joints water key risers, and crooks. Your instrument should be cleaned twice a year with warm soapy water and the proper cleaning brushes. Horn Hospital, L.L.C. performs a complete cleaning “Brass Flush” with biodegradable chemicals that will keep your tubing very clean for smoother air flow. This “Flush” should be done once a year.

The finish on your instrument is either a silver finish or lacquered over brass. If you have a silver finish on your instrument, you can use a high quality silver polish cloth. However, the best item we have found to keep a silver instrument looking its finest is a special liquid/paste silver polish. If you have an instrument with a lacquered finish, you need to polish your horn with “Lacquer Life” several times a year. This will keep a high luster finish on your instrument. We do not recommend a lacquer polish cloth as we have found these have a tendency to leave small scratches on a lacquer finish.

We have put together a special cleaning kit for both brass and silver finished instrument. This consists of proper tubing and mouth-piece brushes, and lacquer or silver polishes.