(Sorry if this is off topic. I couldn't really tell from the FAQ, and there was at least one other, unclosed repair question)
I'm borrowing a Schilke trumpet (serial 55xx) and I'm having some trouble with the valves. When I got it it hadn't been played in years. It started with the middle valve getting interrupted 3/4ths of the way back up. It would hang for a half a second, but only intermittently. Here's what I've done:
- I put all the valves in vinegar and then water, and replaced them. No dice.
- I brought it into a repair shop, where they cleaned it, said it worked. The valve still stuck.
- I brought it back, and they cleaned all of the valves, and lapped the problem valve.
Currently the second valve sticks far less, but the third valve started sticking in the same way. They said to wait a week, because the oils had been removed from the metal, and it would need time for them to work their way back in. It's been several days, and there has been no improvement. It works marginally better immediately after I apply valve oil, but then it gets sticky.
As a pretty inexperienced trumpet player, I'm just not sure what to do. I can't sink infinite money into someone else's trumpet; I'd buy it off of them, but I don't really want to buy a trumpet whose valves don't work right.
How common is it that a trumpets valves are irreparably sticky? I saw on the internet about the Yamalloy problem, which sounds like this problem, but that doesn't seem affect Schilkes of this serial number.