I have just purchased a new Yamaha YSL 981z. I’m having an issue with the slide. It binds once the slide reaches 6th position. It’s only slight and otherwise the slide seems fine. I find it very off putting and it is seriously detracting from my enjoyment of playing. I have two other old horns which don’t have this issue.

I took it back to the store where I bought it and to my astonishment the other 891z in the store had exactly the same issue. I’ve put about 20 hours on it in the last two weeks and it has improved only very slightly.

This is an expensive trombone which I purchased, at least partly, to avoid such issues.

I have cleaned the slide inside and out and relubed it every day. I’ve had it about two weeks.

The seller has said he will contact Yamaha about the issue, but no update on that yet.

Have any of you here that bought the same horn encountered the same problem? If yes, what did you do about it?

Binds? Like Binds solid?

Any idea how long that horn has been around? Yamaha doesn't seem to put any type of assembly protectant on the inside of their horns, so I have in the past gotten brand new Yamaha trombones that were already green on the inside of the tuning slide. When you wipe off the inner slide, is it black/green in color?

Sounds like the soldered-on oversleeves are shrinking the outers at the top.

Mine does this if I use trombotine.

If I use Yamasnot, it's fine. It kind of disturbs me though. I am thinking about sending mine to the slide Dr to get it fixed.

Haven’t experienced this. My 891 slide had a solid break in period though. Honestly took about a year before I was like wow. Two and a half years later it’s probably the best slide I’ve ever had. Lot of cleaning break-in. I would definitely bring it to a competent tech or even mail it out to an elite slide tech. It will definitely be faster than contacting Yamaha, getting an answer, and a solution.

Could have something to do with outer slide "cleanliness" or roughness - but more likely a (possibly subtle) alignment issue.

Sometimes takes an expert tech to resolve these problems (which should have been detected at the factory).

Thank you all for your responses.

Black/green in colour?: for the first few cleans it came out a bit black (no green). This has all but disappeared now.

Sounds like the soldered on oversleeves are shrinking the outers ... : this is exactly what it seems like and was the conclusion that I reached -- or the soldering of brace distorted the shape of the outer. This is why I was astonished when the other one in the shop was the same. Yamaha QC is pretty good, which is why I went with the Yamaha. Two the same, sort of suggests it's not a fault ... but I'm not entirely convinced which is why I came here seeking other's experiences.

Trombontine and Yamasnot - I have used both on this horn. No discernable difference between the two--but your experienece is interesting to note.

Break in period/ elite tech. - The owner of the business I bought the horn from is who I dealt with, and he is an excellent tech. Has been fixing instruments for decades -- the sale of instruments is almost a sideline. It may be that it simply needs to break in a bit more, but I really hope it doesn't take a year -- I might have thrown it across the room by then.

... more likely a (possibly subtle) alignment issue: the tech checked this, and the alignment is out very very slightly. He indicated he could correct this by loosening the soldering on the brace and correcting the alignment. Both horns had a similar very very slight misalignment--we are talking less than a millimetre over the length of the silde. I am really reluctant to have the tech attack my brand new, two week old, very expensive horn with a soldering gun on the off chance that it might correct the issue, but with the accompanying risk that it will leave cosmetic damage on my two week old (etc) horn. This seems highly unsatisfactory. I think Yamaha ought to supply me with a replacement horn that is correctly aligned rather than I go this route. This is isn't a student model or even intermediate trombone -- we pay the big bucks to have these things spot on out of the box.

Thanks again for all your responses. More experiences / comments very welcome.

I had another maker's (very expensive) horn with the same problem.

Off to a good slide tech.........

The verdict on my horn was that the outer slide tubes had shrunk slightly in diameter during the soldering of the brace on the outer slide. Too much soldering heat will expand the brass tube, and when it cools its diameter will be smaller than the original diameter. That area did not bind until it crossed the sleeve area at the ends of the inners.

The fix was to very slightly hone the outer tubes at the brace area only.

People keep saying it could be shrinking from soldering on the over sleeves, but don't the Yamaha Z trombones not have traditional oversleeves? I thought they were only available with the extruded sleeves

[quote="nateaff"]People keep saying it could be shrinking from soldering on the over sleeves, but don't the Yamaha Z trombones not have traditional oversleeves? I thought they were only available with the extruded sleeves[/quote]

I actually don't think they have even those. Hmm.

Every slide has some amount of distortion to the outer slide tube where the brace is soldered on. That's just the way it is. I would only trust a few of the best slide techs to get it right. Not the place you bought it.

[quote="nateaff"]People keep saying it could be shrinking from soldering on the over sleeves, but don't the Yamaha Z trombones not have traditional oversleeves? I thought they were only available with the extruded sleeves[/quote]

Yes. The only “oversleeve” type thing is at the very beginning of the slide tubes. There is no step in the slide near where the brace is attached. If there was any soldering that affected the metal of the tubes it would be at the very top?

I agree that a brand new replacement would be called for, just a matter of how long you’re willing to wait for that to happen…