Removing lacquer can bring a horn to look great again, but that is only temporary. You can use waxes and other products to slow down oxidation but sooner or later it will look like this or worst.

 

So, I HATE the look of old horns that the lacquer is pitted…

Me, too. Someone else may love that horn just as it is.

[/QUOTE]… looks rusty (yes I know brass doesn't rust, it corrodes), and am curious if removing the old lacquer would fix some of those issues? I imagine there is a corrosion inhibitor that can be used? Open to ideas and suggestions please. I've attached a horn in question for reference.
. View attachment 216529
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Lacquer IS the corrosion inhibitor. If you remove the lacquer, then yes, the pitted lacquer is gone, but the whole body is now susceptible to corrosive attack. If there is no green or red spotting, you can inhibit corrosion by sealing the body with something like an auto finish sealer such as Meguiars. There are also fans here that like Lemon Pledge, but that may leave it somewhat sticky and attract dust. Be sure to wipe it dry after use, and stay away from salt air environments - chloride attack is the worst.

 

Me, too. Someone else may love that horn just as it is.

… looks rusty (yes I know brass doesn't rust, it corrodes), and am curious if removing the old lacquer would fix some of those issues? I imagine there is a corrosion inhibitor that can be used? Open to ideas and suggestions please. I've attached a horn in question for reference.
. View attachment 216529
[/QUOTE]

Lacquer IS the corrosion inhibitor. If you remove the lacquer, then yes, the pitted lacquer is gone, but the whole body is now susceptible to corrosive attack. If there is no green or red spotting, you can inhibit corrosion by sealing the body with something like an auto finish sealer such as Meguiars. There are also fans here that like Lemon Pledge, but that may leave it somewhat sticky and attract dust. Be sure to wipe it dry after use, and stay away from salt air environments - chloride attack is the worst.
[/QUOTE]
So, if I have the lacquer stripped, can it then be clear coated to protect the horn?

 

If you do remove it right, you may have a clean shiny surface under where the lacquer now used to be, but where it was already worn off, you will still have the wear of decomposing brass showing. I've removed lacquer on a few cheap horns. It did not help the aesthetic, in fact, it made it look worse to me. The only exception to that is when I removed old, shattered nitrocellulose lacquer laid on top of nickel plating. That was truly ugly, but luckily it came off easily and the nickel showed relatively minor wear.

My advice, if you hate the look that badly, sell the horn. Others tolerate it, some even like it.

 

Good answers so far. You CAN delacquer the entire horn, just get a lacquer stripper from a hardware store but be ready because its nasty stuff, caustic, fumes, will burn your skin mildly if you get it on you and don't was off within around 15 seconds.

You could do tat, it may need 2 applications then removal with a soft bristle toothbrush.

It will NOT look very good after that and a soap and water rinse, though. You then need to go with a polish-paste, or two (one more aggressive, the second more fine).
This will sorta ``uniformize" the sheen across the whole body.

This is a pain in the #ss process, I must say. Not fun DIY stuff. But for certain, it will INITIALLY look better than THAT there.

The next question then becomes, do you leave it, knowing that over time it will patina but NOT knowing HOW it will patina ? (Local climate, how horn is stored, etc effects how the raw brass will age) ?

You CAN apply these sorta coatings, waxes, polymers, which provide SOME sorta protection for a time, but those will wear off eventually too. But they will retard the patina which would happen if left unwaxed/sealed.

*There is no such thing as a "Clear Coat" which will inhibit patina/aging the was lacquer does. Nothing remotely CLOSE to it. But there are products which do make the aging process milder, as long as it is reapplied or upkept somewhat regularly....which could vary from 4 months to two years, depends on the specifics of the situation....

The skinny is : bare brass horn requires upkeep, unless you don't mind it getting spotted, verdgris, red rot in areas which are in contact with dampness that comes from playing.

I DO agree there comes a POINT where, for ME, the horn is such a dog with its current lacq that it is a waste of time to even refurb it in that state because it will never sell for decent $, so I strip it. Sometimes I apply a false patina and a sealer wax. But I offer no guarantees...from then on its the owner's responsibility to deal with the wear and aesthetic.

Tons of threads in tech section on how to care for a bare brass horn, go have a look at those.

 

A pro relacquer costs around $1500.

A pro plating job (silver, nickel) around $2000....

fwiw

 

Plenty of nice brand new horns available for $2000. It's not worth the cost of silver plate unless it's a horn you love.

 

I have some great horns. Not looking for a new one. I was just curious on how to remove old lacquer and make my Mark VI Alto looking better than the neglected finish mine has suffered.

 

can you send a close-up picture of the engraving? it looks pretty shallow on your picture. if this is already a relacquer, then removing the lacquer again will not really devalue it any further.

 

isn't the engraving on the opposite side of the bell than what is exposed in the pic ?

 

Sure, but there is enough of it visible on this picture that looks shallow/buffed, making me suspect this could be a relacquer. Better closeup frontal pictures, including engraving and the mark vi stamp would be helpful.

 

Post #7. I have done some lacquer removals on resale horns and a few for customers.
Do not remove original finish on a MkVI without understanding above posts about resale value.

Expect the time and effort to be large.
I do lots of separate steps. Stripper, always at least two separate applications with old toothbrush and warm water after it sits on there for a while. Soap and water rinse. Twice. The DIP. Again soap and water. Brasso, red rubbing compound, polishing compound, swirl and scratch remover, etc. depending on how much work needed to remove discoloration. All by hand with the toothbrush. So many posts and toneholes! Each abrasive/cleaner may require many repeat applications. Tons of hidden places. Soap and water every time.

I have two Conn projects in the shop currently that I took the original lacquer off. A customer’s 1957 alto that was pretty hard to look at now looks terrific in bare brass. Two applications of high tech auto wax and it is almost back together.

The tenor is a body from one 10m, a bow and bell from another. Lacquer was fair to poor on all, and quite different colors. Off it came. Not much discoloration here, but a lot of dull and shiny spots. Instead of trying to get it all super shiny, I got a sort of intermediate level of uniform “not all that shiny”. This took maybe ten passes on the (nicer) bell and 25 passes on the (rougher) body with various products. Stopped counting at some point. Meaning the whole body being covered in some product by hand and extensively scrubbed with the small dang brush. Lots of old toothbrushes get used up this way. And mouthpiece brushes. And a bottle brush for larger areas. Actually, all that was done before soldering the parts together.

Automotive waxes work great on disassembled sax bodies. Or keys off the sax. Never tried waxing a complete sax. It is just easy to do it as part of a really good COA. I like Meguiar’s, but have successfully used lots of other brands. Pledge I would not expect to give lasting protection for very long on bare brass. I use Pledge sometimes as a quick pre-gig spot remover. Fast and easy. My horns always look sharp at the gig.

Removing old lacquer is the easiest, fastest, least expensive part of this. Each of the other steps is open-ended. Like, use the product, wash and dry, eyeball, repeat.

Oh, and I have sprayed some finishes on too. That is another long story for another day.

 

The best remedy for ugly lacquer is resignation.

 

… which is just a short distance from “acceptance”.

And yeah, sometimes it’s difficult to tell one from the other (says the guy going to PT for the last several months).

 

Was mostly curious about lacquer removal. I know the die hards come from the mind set of “who cares if it’s ugly looking, it’s a Mark VI, leave it alone”. Lol

 

Yeah, but as already pointed out, if you strip the remaining lacquer off, the horn will soon look even worse. And that will also devalue the horn. A loss in both respects.

My VI tenor looks a bit similar, maybe with somewhat less lacquer loss. But I've noticed that in a photo it looks far worse than in person, for some reason. I love how it plays so don't really mind the lacquer loss and it doesn't look half bad if I wipe it down occasionally.

If I were ever to mess with the finish, I'd get it silver plated. My silver plated 75-year-old 156 Aristocrat tenor is silver plated, and it looks as good as if it were brand new. I'd love my VI to be silver plated, but don't want to spend the money.

 

Take it with a grain of salt, but I got a good deal on a Zephyr that had a decent amount of lacquer loss in certain spots. I wanted a more homogenous look so I did a DIY lacquer removal. After spot testing on the keys, found a little acetone coat worked well in stripping the nitrocellulose lacquer and I hand polished it a bit. Here’s some before and after shots! As for the future tarnishing, I’m just gonna embrace it as a part of the horns character.