Hetman. What's up?
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Most of the major online music stores have been out of stock of Hetman valve oils. It has been that way for quite a while. There are smaller vendors on Amazon offering Hetman, but some of the prices are $15 to $25(!) per bottle. Anybody know what's going on?
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@newell-post Their homepage has no indication that anything's up; but that hasn't been renovated since 2003...
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I switched to Berp last year because Hetman was hard to find in all 3 viscosities in Canada. I am happier with Berp. No more of that yellow stuff coming out of my spit valves.
George -
UltraPure is another great source and can be ordered online:
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I've mostly switched to B.E.R.P. too. What I like about Hetmann is its various grades.
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@kehaulani said in Hetman. What's up?:
I've mostly switched to B.E.R.P. too. What I like about Hetmann is its various grades.
Are you aware that BERP comes in 3 different viscosities numbered 1, 2 and 3 ? The 3 is quite heavy and great for some older horns.
George -
I was not aware, George, thanks.
On second thought, I was aware. I've got one strength for newest valves, another for 1st and 3rd valve slides, and another for the tuning slide. Whew. In other words . . "Yes".
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@georgeb said in Hetman. What's up?:
@kehaulani said in Hetman. What's up?:
I've mostly switched to B.E.R.P. too. What I like about Hetmann is its various grades.
Are you aware that BERP comes in 3 different viscosities numbered 1, 2 and 3 ? The 3 is quite heavy and great for some older horns.
GeorgeI believe it also comes in a 5, known as Belch
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I have a bunch of BERP and UltraPure and Monster Oil sitting around plus a few others. I even have some Hetman left, so it's not anything urgent. Hetman just seems to work well on my eclectic herd of horns. Monster Oil also works well, but it is more expensive since the bottles are only about half the size of Hetman. It's no big deal. I just wondered of others have seen the same thing.
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Below is a post from the oTHer site, and from a trusted source. I've found that many retailers try to stock Hetman"s, but are having a hard time with supplies. Sam Ash, Dillon, WWBW and ACB all keep trying. I think Sam Ash has #1 right now and ACB has #1 and 2 in stock. A while back, I got #1 and #3 from WWBW online, but found #2 in a local store. It's out there; you just have to work at it.
"PostPosted: Mon Aug 23, 2021 5:16 pm
Hetman is still very much in business and making their wonderful products. There have been some serious delays in distribution over the past few years. From what I hear now, there is a supply chain issue with them getting their bottles which is causing some major delays. I order hetman from several different vendors and they sell out of what they get pretty quickly, which then makes stock levels at the store level pretty low. Hetman is still one of my best sellers and one of my favorite oils.As for the Meinlschmidt oil... Meinlschmidt was the European distributor for Hetman for many years. With changes in EU regulation on oils and bottles along with slow delivery of Hetman, they needed to do something to fill the void, so they developed their own oils which are very similar. I am not a chemist nor do I know the formulas, they the Meinlschmidt oil is good. I ordered a bunch from them and have been starting to use it in the shop.
Josh
Josh Landress
J. Landress Brass, LLC.
38 West 32nd Street, STE 908, NY, NY 10001
646-922-7126
www.jlandressbrass.com" -
I met Joe Hetman when he came and played a concert with my community band as a sub. I had only a brief conversation about his oil and said I would be interested in getting some from him. That was it. No further contact. One of our next gigs, another trumpet player drops a brown paper bag down on my lap, saying his friend Joe Hetman wanted you to have this. A bottle of valve oil, ( the correct number that I needed, by the way) a bottle of slide oil, and a bottle of slide grease.
All this, having only had that one conversation with me.
Nice guy, but not the end of the story. Later on, at a Chris Botti concert in New Brunswick, as I was leaving, someone says, “hey, Wayne, how are you doing?” And when he sees my blank look, says, “ Joe, Joe Hetman” I tried to quickly recover, and apologized profusely for forgetting who he was, but it had been a couple of years, after all.
Imagine that? He must have some memory, and that is why I think he is a genuinely great guy. I do like his valve oil regardless of that fact. -
So, here's an update..... WWBW listed new Hetman #2 as "in stock." So, I ordered 5 bottles. They arrived promptly, but the zip-closure bag inside the box arrived full of oil. The bottles all leaked like crazy.
I was at local shop "Hornucopia" about other matters, and I asked owner Sandy about Hetman. She told me that other players had told her the same thing. The new round-shaped Hetman bottles leak like crazy. Other players also report the product seems different from the old Hetman oils.
I called WWBW and they gave me a refund "no questions asked." They didn't want the product returned. I can see why.