The original post was published on July 21, 2021. Since then, Hetman has been increasingly hard to get at time. It’s unclear if they are (slowly) going out business, or if it is some sort of supply-chain issue. With that in mind, here are some other options:
Josef Meinlschmidt Lubricants
Also known as “JM Lubricants”, these seem to be an almost 1-to-1 replacement for Hetman products. Just like Hetman products, each product has a different number that gives an idea of its viscosity relative to the other JM products. Since they are all synthetic oils and greases, you can also mix and match if you need an “in-between” viscosity.
You can find JM Lubricants online here:
Monster Oil
Monster Oil is a product that I don’t have much recent experience with. I used a bottle of their valve oil a few years ago, and it seemed to work fine. Since then, they have also come out with a fairly straightforward line of rotor oil products. Instead of a more complicated series of numbers, they have two kinds of rotor oil – light and heavy – and bearing oil (which is thicker than the heavy rotor oil).
They also have a line of “EcoPro” oils, which are the same basic viscosity as the regular oils, but plant-based.
Since these are all synthetic oils, they can also be combined to find “in-between” viscosities (although the Monster Oil brochure says that the light oil will work for “95% of instruments”.
You can find Monster Oil online here:
Yamaha Synthetic
Yamaha also has a limited (but flexible) range of synthetic rotor oils. Like Monster Oil, instead of being labeled with numbers, the three viscosities are rotor oil (light), rotor spindle oil (medium), and lever oil (heavy).
Instead of a metal needle tip, they all have a slightly shorter plastic tip for precision application. While I do like the metal tip more, the plastic tip is less likely to get bent or broken in a tightly-packed case. Also, since Yamaha has such a wide distribution, this may be the easiest to find in your local music store.
You can find Yamaha Synthetic online here:
Original post (July 21, 2001):
I’m a long-time fan of Hetman products. They have a wide range of oils and gels for just about every part of a brass (or woodwind) instrument.
I recently stumbled across this cool PDF that gives handy diagrams for where to best use their different products. I’ve mentioned some of the specific Hetman products I use on my French horn maintenance page, but this PDF could be a great reference to see the different options.
By far my favorite part of Hetman is the variety of oil or grease thicknesses. I use Hetman on horns (both 20+ years old), and having a heavier grease to use on the valve slides (which have gotten a little loose) really helps keep them in place. I use a lighter grease on the main tuning slides, so they are a bit easier to adjust.
Similarly, some of the ball linkages can get a bit noisy, and while a thick oil makes them quiet, it can also make them sluggish. Since all of Hetman’s oils can be mixed without any negative effects, you can even get “custom” viscosities. For my horn, I find applying bearing oil (#14) until the linkage is quiet and then adding some #13 one drop at a time until it moves quickly works best. While I have tried #13 (and #13.5) by themselves, they don’t seem to keep the linkage as quiet as long as the combination of #14 and #13.
If you’ve been having trouble getting your valves or slides to move “just right”, you should give Hetman products a try. They aren’t cheap, but they aren’t much more expensive than other oils, and they seem to both last longer and work better.
You can find Hetman products in your local music store, or at WoodwindBrasswind.com and Amazon.com.
You can find the Hetman lubricants PDF here.
If you’re not sure exactly what to do for basic horn maintenance, you can find my French horn maintenance guide here.
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