Offbeat plating question


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Posted by Frank Rosenau on February 09, 2004 at 00:20:57:

This is for you engineering types (sure hope Rick Denny sees this).

The lead trumpet in a quintet I play with has 2 (count 'em) 2 gold plated trumpets. On one hand gold plating makes sense to me because it doesn't tarnish as does silver. On the other, while there are a few custom gold plated tubas around, it has to be really expensive to do this and since gold is pretty soft, I wonder about the durability.

I'm also thinking that for those who might want an unlacquered horn, but are adverse to the extra maintenance a good non tarnishing finish might be an option.

So, if one wanted a tuba plated with a non tarnishing durable finish, would it make sense to use titanium oxide? It has a yellow brass-like finish, is certainly durable since it's used on drill bits and shouldn't be prohibitively expensive.

Frank (who can think up some really strange questions) Rosenau


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