Scott wrote:
"Vaseline?!?! Are you NUTZ? 
"
No.
“Sorry Loren, You are incorrect.”
No, I am not.
“Tuning slide grease will not harden over time.”
Okay, rather than argue, I’ll just tell you what I base my comments on: For 5 years I managed a musical instrument store, where band instrument rentals constituted a large part of our business - we rented several hundred brass and woodwind instruments a year. In addition we took in hundreds of other brass and woodwind instruments for repair as well, since we had an in-house repair shop.
Now, during those 5 years I saw hundreds of instruments with frozen slides and mouthpieces (where it’s metal to metal like with trumpets, trombones, etc.), and in the vast majority of the cases this was due to a build up and hardening of slide grease. Granted, some of these folks may have used cork grease instead of slide grease, but trumpets (and many other brass instruments), for example, don’t have cork, and we supplied slide grease with every instrument we rented or sold, so it’s HIGHLY improbable that many, or even most of the stuck brass slides we encountered were due to cork grease that had been substitited for slide grease.
If you want to contradict me Scott that’s your prerogative, but at least give us some substantial experiential or scientific data to back it up.
By the way, I’ve run across a number of “famous” maker all metal whistles (not going to name the brand) with severely frozen tuning slides - some of the owners have told me they used nothing but slide grease (although others did admit to using cork grease or chap stick)
“CORK grease may, if you get the cheap stuff that is water based.”
In my experience I have not run across a cork grease that will not harden enough to freeze tight fitting slides over time.
“Tuning slide grease is petroleum based (like Vaseline) but because of the thicker viscosity (about like chapstick actually but without the paraffin that when cold will gum up your slide) will actually provide better lubrication on well made slides with tight tolerances than Vaseline will.”
I agree that the higher viscosity makes for better lubrication. I’d even agree that vaseline is not, ultimately, the best solution, a dry fit slide is, or alternately, a user who will do regular maintanence to their instrument, but in practice, that’s hard to find. As I’ve said before, check with the maker and go with what they recommend, my suggestion is vaseline if you need something “Now” while you’re waiting to hear back from the maker, or if you can’t contact them. Hell, I’d say simply clean the slide and use nothing is best, but people seem to feel some crazy need to constantly grease that which doesn’t need it, and then ignore greasing those things that do (like corks).
“Plus because it is thicker it is less likely to melt at skin temperature like Vaseline and become essentially oil which will (believe it or not) almost instantly freeze this type of metal fitting.”
You exaggerate: When vaseline liquifies while on a slide, (which doesn’t happen at room temperature), the slide doesn’t freeze, it merely becomes a bit “catchy” as the metal grabs on metal a bit when you move the slide. Certainly the slide is still moveable by hand, it simply becomes a bit fiddly, not frozen solid to the point where a either a mouthpiece puller, or leather headed mallets need to be brought into play, which is often the case cork and slide grease. And why would you let your instrument get so hot as to liquify the vaseline anyway?
“Also because it is petroleum based, it will provide a waterproof barrier to the metal and further slow the oxidation caused by the moisture in your breath. So your slide will run longer between cleanings.”
Well, this is good marketing, but not entirely true, as water vapor still gets through to the slide one way or another regardless.
“All this of course not considering specific makers who advise against lubing their whistles.”
Again, agreed there.
Look, I don’t think slide grease is evil 
and I agree it’s a “better” choice than cork grease and chapstick to be sure., however long experience has shown me that metal slides can, and do, still freeze up even when slide grease is used. With a brass instrument, it’s not a huge deal, because there are tools to easily deal with the situation, will a heavy duty all metal whistle, it’s a bit trickier - you have to wack the slide area, often repeatedly, with a leather headed jeweler’s mallet (assuming you’ve already tried heating and cooling), but with a wooden whistle you’re screwed - You obviously can’t start whacking the wood surrounding the slide with mallet. You can’t safely cool the entire whistle without risking cracks to the wood. If you had the proper tooling you might be able to pry the sections apart, depending on how the banding is sized and attached, but there is a risk of damage to the wood. You can’t heat the entire instrument, for obvious reasons. So the best option left in many cases is heating the slide itself, but you seriously risk debonding the slide from the wood in the process, and then you have to reglue and reinstall the entire slide, assuming you can get it unstuck. There are a few other risky aproaches as well, but my point is that, particularly with wooden whistles, why take the chance?
At any rate, people will do whatever they want regardless. The point I’m trying to make is that if one is unsure what to use: A) check with the maker and take their advice or B) If the maker is unavailable for whatever reason, first clean and dry the slide to see if you can get by with no lube (often you can), but if that doesn’t work, it’s my opinion that you’re much better off using a little vaselne as opposed cork grease or chap stick. I’ll even agree with Scott that, in the short term, cork grease is better than vaseline, however over time it absolutely can cause a slide to freeze.
Take it FWIW.
Loren
