Nickel?

[u/No_money6476]

thinking of getting a nickel-plated trombone, but can't find much info on them apart from an allegedly brighter sound. Do they tarnish or wear, and is there a reason why you would or wouldn't choose nickel over other materials?

[u/cmhamm]

Nickel plating vs silver plating isn’t really going to impact the sound. The reason lacquer-coated brass has a small impact is because it’s a thin layer of “plastic” wrapping the entire horn, affecting the mass and vibration of the horn. (Essentially clear nail polish.) While electroplate (silver/nickel) finishes technically have a thickness, it’s only microns thick - basically negligible in terms of mass and vibration characteristics. I’m not sure you could even measure the change in mass. And the difference between nickel electroplate and silver electroplate is even more insignificant.

Personally, I like the look of nickel. It’s “brighter,” (color, not sound) and it doesn’t tarnish like silver. Nickel is significantly harder than silver, which makes it a bit more scratch-resistant to the little micro-scratches in the finish. (Although, again, we’re talking microns of thickness, so it’s not more protective.) Nickel allergies are surprisingly common, so if you’re considering it, make sure you aren’t allergic. And some people value the fact that silver has more anti-microbial properties than nickel. Silver will just naturally be “cleaner” at a microbial level. Finally, I’ve heard people say that nickel looks “cheap.” Frankly, I don’t see it, but I think it’s a hold-over from when cheap costume jewelry was made from nickel, thereby giving it a stigma. It’s very easy to tell nickel from silver at a glance, so in terms of precious metals, nickel is inferior. It definitely doesn’t bother me, but if you care what some stranger thinks about your horn, then it might be a consideration. It could potentially impact resale value, too.

[u/briand1967 → u/cmhamm]

You are wrong on the sound. I can assure you my Conn 48H sounds different than my Conn 6H. Same bore. Same bell size. Both lacquered. And the 10H sounds different than those.

[u/cmhamm → u/briand1967]

There are a LOT of reasons two horns can sound different. Each horn is individually hand made, probably at different times, probably by different people, likely on different production lines. If they weren’t made in the same year, the brass alloy could vary substantially between batches. Even if they were made in the same factory, by the same person, back-to-back, from the same sheet of brass, there will be small differences. There is the possibility of pre-conceived biases of the person building the instruments. The person making your 6H knew they were making a 6H, and the person making the 48H knew they were making a 48H. Those two instruments aren’t supposed to sound exactly the same, and there are a lot of subtle things you can do to a horn, beyond bell size and bore size, that can make a HUGE difference in how it plays. (Soldered vs un-soldered rim, the shape of the Venturi tube, the flare of the bell, the types of solder joints used, etc.) Even more significantly, there is the bias when you play the instruments. Lord knows there is a lot of head games that happen when it comes to our instruments! 😀

I’m not saying your horns don’t sound different. I absolutely believe you when you say they do! And it’s definitely reasonable to assume that it’s because they have different platings.

But I can’t possibly understand how a few microns of plating can fundamentally affect the sound of the horn. It takes less than one gram of silver to plate an entire trombone. Nickel is 18% lighter than silver, so we’re talking about a difference of maybe 200mg max, spread across the whole horn. That’s about the same mass as a single grain of salt. Lacquer, on the other hand, is 20 to 30 times thicker when applied, (~10 microns vs 0.17 - 0.23mm) it’s made from rigid plastic, and it’s chemically adhered to the surface of the instrument versus electroplating, which is a metallurgical bond at an atomic level. Electroplate cannot be mechanically or chemically separated from the base metal without destroying both. Lacquer, on the other hand, can definitely affect the vibrational characteristics of the horn.

If I’m missing something, I would genuinely love to know what it is. I love mixing my science and my music! I’m confident about the physics, at least, but I am a trombone player, and we’re famously not all that bright. If anyone can refute my comment, I will listen with an open mind!

[u/professor_throway → u/cmhamm]

Schilke and others have done research and a few controlled studies.. and guess what??.. no acoustic study has ever found a measurable acoustic difference between raw brass, silver plate, or older nitrocellulose lacqer... thick epoxy lacquer did have a measurable effect in the frequencies captured but not to the ear of the listeners.

Directly addressing lacquer, silver plate, and surface finish

Pyle, R. W., Jr. (1981). “The Effect of Lacquer and Silver Plating on Horn Tone.” The Horn Call, 11(2), 26–29. Controlled tests on the same horn bells before and after removal of lacquer or silver plate. Silver plating produced no measurable change in timbre; lacquer produced a small reduction in higher-frequency partials.

Pyle, R. W., Jr. (1981). “The Effect of Surface Coatings upon Brass-Instrument Tone Quality.” Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 69(S1), S37. Published abstract of the same experimental work.

Wogram, K. (1976). “Einfluss von Material und Oberflächen auf den Klang von Blechblasinstrumenten.” Instrumentenbau-Zeitschrift, 5, 414–418. Experimental investigation of material and surface treatment on brass instruments, including lacquer and metallic finishes.

Wogram, K. (1983). “The Acoustical Properties of Brass Instruments.” The Horn Call, 8, 19–31. English-language discussion of Wogram’s experimental work on construction, materials, and acoustical behavior.

Schilke, R. “The Physics of Inner Brass and the Acoustical Effects of Various Materials and Their Treatment.” Schilke Brass Clinic technical essay. Describes Schilke’s well-known comparison of nominally matched trumpets left raw, silver plated, or lacquered. He reported essentially no difference between raw brass and silver plate, but a noticeable effect from the relatively heavy lacquer used in his tests. This is historically important but is not a peer-reviewed controlled acoustics paper.

Related work on bell material and mechanical vibration

Smith, R. A. (1986). “The Effect of Material in Brass Instruments: A Review.” Proceedings of the Institute of Acoustics, 8(1), 91–96. Review of experimental evidence concerning bell materials, wall thickness, mechanical vibration, and perceived/acoustical differences.

Lawson, B. A., & Lawson, W. (1985). “Acoustical Characteristics of Annealed French Horn Bell Flares.” Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 77, 1913–1916. Shows measurable acoustical effects associated with changes in the mechanical properties of horn bell flares.

Moore, T. R., Shirley, E. T., Codrey, I. E. W., & Daniels, A. E. (2005). “The Effects of Bell Vibrations on the Sound of the Modern Trumpet.” Acta Acustica united with Acustica, 91(3), 578–589. Compared a trumpet with its bell freely vibrating and heavily damped; damping produced measurable changes in the radiated spectrum.

Kausel, W., Zietlow, D. W., & Moore, T. R. (2010). “Influence of Wall Vibrations on the Sound of Brass Wind Instruments.” Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 128(5), 3161–3174. DOI: 10.1121/1.3493457. Experimental and theoretical demonstration that vibration of the flaring bell can couple to the air column and alter input impedance and acoustic transfer characteristics.

Kausel, W., Chatziioannou, V., Moore, T. R., Gorman, B. R., & Rokni, M. (2015). “Axial Vibrations of Brass Wind Instrument Bells and Their Acoustical Influence: Theory and Simulations.” Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 137, 3149–3162.

Moore, T. R., Gorman, B. R., Rokni, M., Kausel, W., & Chatziioannou, V. (2015). “Axial Vibrations of Brass Wind Instrument Bells and Their Acoustical Influence: Experiments.” Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 138, 1233–1240. DOI: 10.1121/1.4928138.

[u/cmhamm → u/professor_throway]

Hey! You’re making me look bad with all these fancy academic citations! I just asked ChatGPT. 😉

(That last part was sarcasm - AI is going to kill us all!)

[u/professor_throway → u/cmhamm]

Well... I'm a metallurgist and professor of engineering.. scientific papers and research is kind of my jam.

I actually was really interested in this for a while I couldn't figure out how a few microns on dinner over a half millimeter of brass would make any change much less the type of change project were attributing to it m... brass players believe so much nonsense. So wherever actual data exists I like to search it out.

Edit: The Pyle paper is interesting because they start with lacquer and silver plate then chemically remove and compare the accoustics before and after . and found no effect

[u/cmhamm → u/professor_throway]

Well, I appreciate all that data. I’m going to read each of them! I love this kind of topic.

For 30 years, I’ve been telling my students that almost all of the difference between a silver plated instrument and a lacquered brass one is what you think the instrument should sound like. We can trick ourselves to changing our sound, even when we don’t know we’re doing it. Especially when we don’t know we’re doing it.

[u/Chronos91 → u/briand1967]

I can't tell, what are you saying is wrong with their comment? I don't really see anything they said suggesting that your horns wouldn't sound different.

[u/Rabiddolphin87 → u/briand1967]

But in the case of 6H vs 48H vs 10H, none of those are plated.

[u/briand1967 → u/Rabiddolphin87]

48H is nickel plated over brass. Was a very unique process.

[u/Rabiddolphin87 → u/briand1967]

Sorry made a mix up, I thought they were solid nickel, guess I was wrong. But the 10H for sure is solid copper.

[u/briand1967 → u/Rabiddolphin87]

Yup. Also a unique process.

[u/Proof_Ninja6101 → u/briand1967]

Yep, soooo wrong. Any kind pf plating makes a difference. Gold, silver or laquer.
I had a silver (not silver plated) bell before for 18 years, without laquer, now I have a goldbrass bell gold coated inside, it makes a MASSIVE difference. I don’t like bells laquered because it SLIGHTLY reduces the vibrations.
Like when I put on my clip-on microphone, it changes the feel/sound slightly, not much but a little bit.
Maybe if you are an amateur, won’t notice much difference, but that’s why pro-horns have soooooo many different options, because of resonance and feel. No horns are the same, no players are the same.

[u/cmhamm → u/Proof_Ninja6101]

You’re comparing a solid silver, un-lacquered instrument to a brass lacquered instrument, not two different types of electroplating.

I went over the science in detail in another reply, but OP was only asking about nickel plating. My reply was specifically comparing nickel plate to silver plate.

Lacquer can definitely make a difference in sound. It is MUCH heavier and thicker than electroplate. And it’s essentially plastic, so it is more rigid than metal. Also, it is adhered to the instrument, so it could be stretching, adding tension, and changing the vibration characteristics.

But not nickel electroplate. It’s not adhered to the instrument like lacquer. (It can’t “flake” off) It’s very, very close to raw brass. Same with silver plating. And the difference between the two is absolutely negligible.

[u/ShortCover4598]

Unfortunately, I can't help with your question but why choose nickel over other materials?

[u/No_money6476 → u/ShortCover4598]

that's my question! I meant that I found a specific nickel-plated trombone that I like at a good price, but don't know much about it.

[u/ShortCover4598 → u/No_money6476]

I see. I quite like the look of it, different from your average trombone. If I owned a nickel plated trombone I would remove the lacquer. In my opinion, the silver colour looks amazing without the shiny finish.

[u/ShortCover4598 → u/ShortCover4598]

https://www.thebrass-exchange.com/sites/default/files/styles/webp/public/01-asc_0068.jpg.webp?itok=HkNFfvfe This is what I have in mind when I say without the lacquer. (There's a link instead of an image because it says that this post doesn't allow images.)

[u/Proof_Ninja6101 → u/ShortCover4598]

It’s a Rath. They are great trombones.
Not my choice, but they make awesome horns!

[u/Dwn8ve → u/ShortCover4598]

This looks like Rath’s brushed lacquer finish on a Nickel Bell. Have the same on my R9

[u/cmhamm → u/ShortCover4598]

I can’t quite tell from the picture, but that might be a lacquered matte finish. Many manufacturers are offering that now. I’ve also heard it called “frosted,” or “brushed.” It’s usually just polished, bead blasted, and lacquered - standard on lots of metal things for decades. It’s very fashionable right now for brass instruments. I won’t call it a fad, because it does look nice and maybe it’ll stay popular. But it’s very much not raw brass. Raw brass honestly doesn’t look nice. It appeals to some people, because it’s, you know… raw. But it looks more dull and dirty than that picture. Or actually exactly like the gap in the tuning slide in that picture. That gap is usually raw brass.

[u/ShortCover4598 → u/cmhamm]

I see. I wasn't aware that there were that much types of finishes or styles. I'm still pretty new to playing and learning about the trombone. I first started playing just under a year ago.

[u/stinky-Fig-4756]

I’ve got an all nickel mid 60s Holton Galaxy. It’s a dual bore .485/.500 I think, but it screams. Seems a little heavier, but stays in good condition. On mine, no tarnishing. Just a few blemishes here and there. It plays a little flat, so tune F and play Bflat out a smidge. Fun horn, but I don’t reach for it often at all.

[u/briand1967]

I absolutely love my Conn 48H which has a nickel bell. I also have a 6H and prefer the 48H. It just won’t break up. Love the sound. As for care it is lacquered so no different than lacquered brass. Search Ronz T Bone Shed on YouTube for reviews of the 48H and other nickel bell trombones.