What is topz?
Cleaning the lacquer?
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Colin the Bear
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Opposite to btmz. 
Jazz Is All
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50€ gets free shipping from Thomann in the UK?? What a ripoff. The minimum here on the mainland of Europe....oh wait..... the UK is not in Europe now (if it ever really was to begin with) so I certainly hope that up that to the 200€ minimum they have for us who are in Europe. That's right, 200 is the minimum....you want a box of reeds you pay 20€ for the shipping even if it fits in an envelope and only costs 5 to send it. I will only shop on Thomann for something that gets the free shipping I get with Amazon on most everything by being a Prime member which has many other benefits too.Would someone be kind enough to furnish the chemical bases of these two products so I can find one that may not be branded under those names.
At the moment, they're very useful, while local stores have been closed. However, Thomann often has better pricing when you hit the free shipping level of 50€, and they use the most reliable shipper for where I live, UPS.
Jay, you are not at all a contrarian, but you do enjoy expressing differences of opinion, and that's why a forum of any kind works. Thanks for that value added, I say this without irony!
In the context of this thread, stores will be open next week so I can go try to find a product based on the main ingredient of all those mentioned. But while the stores were closed, Amazon was the best way to go, other than opening an account at some unknown online store for this one use. It seems to be furniture polish! That's unintuitive, since the instrument isn't made of wood? We must have some of that in the house; I'll do some small scale testing.
Thanks
Jazz Is All
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You can't win. When it was dirty you didn't even notice it, but now you've become Mr. Anal Compulsive like a guy with a new car standing on the street with a gun ready to shoot the first person who bumps his car while parking. Sadly, tarnish, oxidation, corrosion etc are all natural and part of the entropy of life in a physical world. Perfection doesn't exist even for an instant.
Jazz Is All
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Okay, I in fact discovered the same thing as the OP. Playing alto so much lately I haven't handled my Martin tenor much at all. I just picked it up and it has this texture like tiny bumpy dots of something all over the lacquer. I took a cloth and sprayed furniture dusting cleaner on it and began rubbing, but it didn't really do much except shine the smooth areas of the lacquer and didn't remover the bumpy stuff. So I got the Zippo out and put some on a cloth and began to rub. What came off was green in color, which leads me to believe it is the type of corrosion Iv'e seen on some old horns for sale on eBay that have a kind of pizza face look to them all over. After all, brass turns green when it corrodes....like a cheap ring on your skin. I tried rubbing alcohol too and that does the same thing, except neither takes the bumplets off.
So I'm wondering if nail polish remover with acetone would do it assuming it is safe for the lacquer. Does anyone know if it is or isn't? I might just test it in a spot that is not noticable but I'd rather know first if I can.
So I'm wondering if nail polish remover with acetone would do it assuming it is safe for the lacquer. Does anyone know if it is or isn't? I might just test it in a spot that is not noticable but I'd rather know first if I can.
Colin the Bear
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The green is verdigris. The oxidation of the brass. Metal polish will remove it. An electric toothbrush will save all the elbow grease. It will re appear if not treated. Some use wax. Some relacquer. Some like it "raw".
Acetone will strip some lacquers. Unless you want to remove more lacquer I wouldn't use it.
Acetone will strip some lacquers. Unless you want to remove more lacquer I wouldn't use it.
Jazz Is All
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When you say metal polish are you referring to something like Simonize or similar car polishing liquids? I don't think you're referring to silver polish or cleaner since the one I have says it's abrasive and not to be used on lacquer.
Colin the Bear
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The green bits have no lacquer. That's why they're green. Silver polish doesn't work on brass. You need a brass polish for badly corroded bits. Ketchup will work and WD40 too.
What part of Europe are we talking about? Orders for 50€ or more at Thomann offer free shipping to France, which is in Europe. I'm expecting something today. This said, I try to buy local if the difference isn't too significant. Thomann is a little cheaper on reeds, especially in quantity.
Stephen Howard
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Verdigris removal?
Methods for removing green spots (verdigris) from your horn
How to treat green spots (verdigris) on your horn
www.shwoodwind.co.uk
Jazz Is All
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Shipping from Thomann.es to customers in Spain is 20 euros up to 199 euros for mail delivery and free above that. But UPS costs money depending on the amount of the order above that 200.
I never knew that! Austria, Belgium, France, Netherlands >50€ = free shipping. Other countries vary, but Spain says 15€ shipping for a 60€ purchase. That's definitely not worth it. It's possible that these are regulated by each country for protection issues.
Jazz Is All
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Sorry....I misquoted the prices for shipping to Spain. It used to be 20€ but now it is 15€ for purchases below 200€ as you have stated. I don't know when they changed that, but anyway the rates they charge vary with the country of destination and make no sense to me at all.
Here is the link to the shipping rate page...the chart for all the countries is below those for Spain.
Gastos de envío y tiempo de entrega – Thomann España
Notice that for Spain you can get it sent by UPS, but it is still 5€ between 200 and 398 euros in value. The lowest costs appear to be to countries bordering on Germany, however that doesn't explain why it is cheaper to the UK than to most countries in the EU even though the UK is no longer in the EU. This is for shipping by UPS too.....8 pounds up to 135 pounds whereupon it is free. Excuse me???? WTH???? Someone please explain that to me, because I'm doing a slow burn now over the blatant injustice of that totally contradictory policy given that the leavers want no part of Europe but are now getting a better deal from an EU company than those of us in EU countries which are much close to Germany to begin with.
This is the straw that broke this camel's back and has made Thomann the last place I'll consider buying anything from.
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My guesses:
1: I always get UPS, but maybe shippers like UPS set the prices in each country in Europe? If it's by truck, maybe the number of borders they need to cross? France 1 Spain, 2.
2. Protectionist action by each member state.
In any case, anger won't help. Thomann try to be the lowest price anywhere. I know they annoy all French music stores because the stores here can't match their prices. When I bought the YDS, I wanted to get it here so I told the store they had to match Thomann's price for me to buy it. I figured it was not only good to support them, but for returning it or service, I wouldn't have to ship it back. The 50€ free shipping is a pretty sweet deal because two Légère reeds or a 15-20 reeds will be shipped free to me. Or 18 Vandoren Blues Alto reeds 2,59 each, shipped free. They're a little over 3 in the store, IIRC. Just looking now at Amazon FR, the Légère American Cut are 3€ more than Thomann. That's significant!
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Jazz Is All
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I think you have the UPS thing right....they have their own policies on prices whereas by postal service Thomann just tacks on whatever extra they want for "service".
As to the reason for not having a set price for all the EU countries as one, that has always made it clear that the EU is still just an amalgam of separate independent countries rather than a unified super-state, in the sense of the USA. There postage depends on size and weight for many classes of mail rather than the distance it has to travel calculated by zones. They also have flat-rate shipping for types of shipping that would normally cost more because of the distance the parcel is being sent. None of that idea has been put into practice in the EU, and it seems to me to be a road block to small companies being able to do business outside their own borders as well as private individuals being able to buy from other EU countries online.
The other fact is that even when the UK was in the EU, being able to retain the pound as opposed to going to the Euro like almost everyone else, was a big deterrent to EU residents against shopping there. Actually, until the USPS raised their rates so high, and the Spanish Gov revamped the Customs service to snag everything and jack us up like highway robbers did, buying from the USA was always a lot cheaper than from the UK, given the much lower exchange rate of the former compared to that of the latter. Now that is a moot point since the UK is totally out of contention as a place to shop. Doing so is now a double whammy, hitting us for the higher value of the pound and for the duty we now have to pay for shopping there. My opinion is that they are going to be regretting this very soon, if they aren't already since who needs them now if their goods are overvalued and also too expensive to import? It's going to be a case of tough titty, but we told you so way in advance.
To prove that one only needs to look at the current exchange rates for the euro to both the dollar and the pound on a site like x-rates.com/calculator. I use it to calculate the relative values of sax stuff on the various eBuy sites to see how the prices compare in Euros and weigh that against the relative costs of shipping and duties, if any.
Right now there is a difference between the dollar on the lower end and the pound on the higher of 31€ per 100. That ain't just spit when we're talking about a saxophone that costs several hundred quid compared to fewer dollars, given that all American horns cost more in the EU and UK already. Looking at the various eBoy sites in the EU countries the prices for American horns is totally outrageous in Germany, Scandinavia and the NL.
For example, there's a Martin Comm III from Germany going for 2.400 euros, and it's a terrible relac not worth more than $1,400 in the USA or even in Spain. Then there is a reelaced Martin Imperial going for 1,500 euros when those student horns aren't worth more than $600 in good original shape. Worse yet is an Indiana in miserable condition that some shop in Germany wants close to 1,250 euros for!! The seller is either demented or just an out-and-out crook because I knew a guy who sold an Indiana in better shape than that for $250 on SOTW simply because he needed cash desperately and as was typical of the nickle and dime members back then, he had to keep lowering the price while everyone sat on their hands not buying it at the reasonable price he had it for. They knew the poor guy was hard up and needed the cash to get his car fixed, so he could get to work or school or whatever it was, but they just let him sweat it out and practically give it away. And these were people who pretended to be his friends when the subject was something else. That right there was one of the things I most disliked about that forum and many of its members who let no opportunity go by to cheat someone out of a fair sale or to screw it for them by making negative comments about that particular model of sax or mouthpiece even though they were not in fact interested in buying it.
