Today was "trombone bath day," a tradition that Shires told me I should take care of every few months. Of course we all know that it gets awhile longer than that amongst bathings, but ... do as we're told, not as we do.
Perhaps you will find these few notes and pictures useful. If you are following this as a how-to,
be very careful with your instrument! The usual "it's not my fault if you mess up your instrument" applies. Just be careful, and you should do alright.
Below are the required materials, and the following pages document the steps I took. If you haven't given your instrument a bath, it's probably about time you do. But be careful when you do it!
Guidelines
This full cleaning took me about an hour, but I normally don't document my work. Budget an hour and you can cover everything from walking in to walking out the door.
I used:
- trombone
- bathroom with person-sized bath tub (at least as long as the trombone slide)
- hand soap (soft, non-moisturizing hand soap)
- soft, non-abrasive cloth for washing
- soft, non-abrasive cloth for drying
- slightly weighted cardboard box
- box of paper tissues
- cleaning rod (steel rod wrapped in cheese cloth)
- polishing cloth
- my standard oils, grease, and water spray bottle
