Mouthpiece work: cleaning hardrubber

Hardrubber mouthpieces get brown after some time. It seems not to be very difficult to let them look almost like new. 

I first started this experiment with an unbranded mouthpiece. After the first good result I tried it with a Selmer SA80 C*.

The way to renew the mouthpiece is to start wet sanding the mouhtpiece with a very fine type of waterproof sandpaper. Most of the time grit no. 400 or 600 will do. Using this on a brownish mouthpiece results in a lot of brown water. Then sand again with grit no. 1200 next with a very fine steelwool and finally polish it with a plastic polish.

The first picture below shows the Selmer SA80 C* after the first step: half way the wet sanding with waterproof paper grit no 600. 

After completing the first step it is all black again, but the mouthpiece is very dull, mat now.

After polishing it with plastic polish it starts to shine like a new mouthpiece.

The result an treated and an untreated example.

The result is quite good. But it can still be better than this. I had to skip the 1200 grid step since I ran out of this. But the result show what can be achieved.