I have a tiny bit of experience in cleaning up mostly clean antique flutes and oiling new ones. But I picked up a good used flute made by a respected modern maker that seems to have been treated fairly badly. It played ok but not as spectacularly as expected. So I took off some keys and found a lot of dirt both on the pads, on the inside of the holes and around the seats. One of the pads has gone completely black with something brittle on the surface. I am going to attempt to clean the flute and pads separately. My plan right now is to take off the keys and cork and give the body parts an almond oil soak then swabbing making sure there is no gunk left inside (white tee shirt strips are good for checking gunk), then a gentle clean around the seats with clean new hog bristle oil painting brushes and more swabbing to remove the chunks that may have fallen into the body. Some of the holes are actually pretty crusty. A hog bristle filbert looks like it will be particularly effective at cleaning the groove around the seat without damage and a flat 1/4 incher looks like it will be effective for gently cleaning the holes without damaging the undercuts. A hog bristle filbert is a brush that is flat and pointy at the same time so it has a bit of heft and directionality without leaving fiber like a Q tip. I am thinking cotton fiber could be damaging, picking up a bit of a splinter if the grain has gotten damaged and messing up the seal. Hog bristle brushes are semi stiff, almost tool like. Even a wooden skewer scares me a bit. I will keep you posted on how the brushes work.
I wonder if I should be using mineral oil instead for the body at least, any opinions?
If any of you restorer folks are ripping out your hair as you read this and want to stop me from attempting this, now is the time. I would be glad for advice. I am also going to bail on this if I get even a hint that I might be damaging the body. If I find a lot of immovable build up inside the bore, that could be a time to bail and send it off.
I am assuming I am going to be unsuccessful at cleaning the pads. One of them is completely black. But I look forward to being surprised. I did attempt to clean the pads on a piccolo a few years back with a light wipe of mink oil. In that case they did clean easily, but they never did reseat correctly, even though they had before. They were antique purse pads. So that may have added to the difficulty. Neetsfoot oil or mink oil has been recommended to wipe the pads. But there should be no attempt to soak them or scrub them as far as I understand. Anyone have another opinion? These seem to be modern clarinet pads so they may respond ok, or not. I am thinking the light wiping here and putting them back on the flute to dry makes the most sense. If the pad doesn’t seem to seal I am thinking rubber bands overnight.
I’ve taken keys off clean maintained flutes for years to oil them and usually just pop the pin and key in a zip lock bag. (For those who may not have done this yet keeping the pin and its key together is important since the pins do match the blocks. Even if they look the same size sometimes there is a taper that needs to match.)
Thanks for reading this rambling thinking out loud post, any advice appreciated. I likely will not get a chance to do this for a couple of days so there is time to warn me off. Haha