Cleaning my Valves

I had put it off way too long, but tonight I decided to clean the valves on my B454-DE. They work so well that I just haven’t taken the time to do it recently. I got out my isopropyl alcohol, clean rags, screw driver and… I couldn’t find the allen wrench to remove the stop arm screw from the valve assembly. I looked everywhere for the little bag of Edwards goodies that comes with every horn purchase. Nada. I decided to head to Home Depot to buy a set. Before I went, I wanted to make sure I knew the correct size, so I checked our web site and found nothing. I called Christan. He didn’t know, either, but was pretty sure that we used an English size.

So Noah and I drove to Home Depot with my gig bag in the trunk. We went down the tool aisle and I pulled out my bell section and started testing. For those of you that are interested (and misplace stuff as often as I do), the correct size to remove the stop arm screw from an Edwards trombone valve assembly is 3/32″.

By the way, my valves are flying. Now I can’t blame the horn for bad articulations.