What do you use to clean out your flute? I noticed the subject of cleaning rods on the cloth bag thread.
I have a nifty thing that looks like a rubber coated tiny round fishing weight, attached to a braided nylon cord sewn to a swatch of cotton twill and cotton jersey. No cleaning rod! I love it. You just drop the weight through the flute and draw the swab through. And the really clever part is, you can drop the tiny weight through the embouchure hole to clean out the head joint. I bought it at my local school band supply type music store.
I also cut the fabric down on one to use in my fifes. It’s all stained brown from the wood, and is the object of derision from all who see it.
Okay, I can’t stand it. I have to say it… “clean as a whistle!”
I just use a 1/4" diameter dowel rounded on one end and a soft, light cotton cloth, usually a very old dark blue bandana (stains are less likely to be seen, too ). I also keep paper napkins (serviettes to our Chiffsters beyond the Pond, I believe) to clear away any excess cork grease so that it doesn’t get on the swabbing cloth and eventually render it unabsorbent.
Well my system isnt quite that neat. I use an old leather shoe lace with a piece of spunge tyed to the end to swab out my two end pieces and my pistol cleaning rod with a 12 guage shotgun barrel mop screwed into the end to do the head joint. When I oil the inside of the flute I use gun cleaning swabs to slop the almound oil in with and the shotgun mop to wipe out the excess once its been soaking for a few hours. But it all works pretty good. My fife is plastic so I dont worry about it. I do have a cooperman rosewood fife but I am only just now starting to be able to play the darn thing. Never could get the lower register Bb to play. But thanks to the plastic one and the fact that I may just be getting a hint of an embouchure starting to happen I may start playing that little thing.
I spit into it throughout the evening and then shake it out toward the quitar and hammer dulcimer players (just seeing if you’re reading Sarah) when I’m done.
I use a silk cloth with a long thread and weight on the end and drop it through the sections before taking them apart. Then I use a wooden dowel with a small hole on one end to wind the silk into for cleaning the head joint.
i use Roger Holman’s “flute flag”, the model for conical flutes. I was the test pilot for the prototype, and that prototype is what i still use for all my metal and wooden flutes!
What, you don’t just hold the flute vertically over their beer and let it drain out when they’re not looking?
For a flute swab, I just use a chopstick and a small piece of cloth, usually torn from a retired t-shirt or flannel bedsheet. True, the cloth occasionally gets left behind when I’m swabbing out the headjoint, but all you have to do is put your mouth over the embouchure and give a good hard puff of air to blow it back out.
I use a plastic dowel with a split end that I bought at a music shop. For cloth I just use a bit of an old t-shirt. I remove the headjoint cap after I play so I can swab out the entire tube. Nothing too fancy but it works.
I have this bizzare rod thing. I picked it up when I was visiting a cousin who was getting married down england way.
Its a plastic rod, with like half a spongy ball glued on. On top of that is a round pad of chamois (chammy) cloth, with a skirt like circle of chamois on that. its really neat, works great, but is filthy now The round chamois part of it is exactly flute hole size.
I have tried making similar, but havent found anything as good as it. They only had one, never saw them again, and no ones heard of them, plus its a foreign country that made it.
Its not a very adequate way of describing it, but i could post a picture if required.
It makes a really satisfying pop when you cover the mouth piece, and pull it out!
Also seems to mop up the liquid at the very top.
If you use a fluffy type thing that is sold at many flute shops and is big in diameter don’t rotate it inside of a flute that has keys because you may be scrubbing the inside of the pads especially on a boehm flute. Ok for keyless or headjoints only.
Brad, that is totally disgusting. I laughed so hard! One thing that is fun about being an Irish flute player is, you can gross out your session mates more than they can gross you out – usually.
It seems like almost everyone likes the cleaning rod type thing. I’m kind of fond of my swab though, I can roll it up and stuff it in my pocket when I’m in the field. If I don’t have time to pull out the swab, I just fling the spit out by swinging the fife sharply in an arc toward the ground. But since a fife is only 15 inches long, that’s no problem.
I do actually quite like the idea of the cloth with a weight on it. Some one i know uses one with beads on it to act as the weight. The only downside i have is having to lug the rod around separatly as the TJJ cases dont provide a space for them.
Will investigate weights when i next go shopping, and see if i can do one myself.
I use a cleaning rod and a cloth. But I’m wondering how people clean out the headjoint? Someone mentioned a while back that a flute maker sold an apparatus for this sole purpose. Can anyone remember whom it was?
For my keyless flute, I actually use a commmercial flute “Pad-Saver”, which is made from two stiff wires twisted together with cotton threads twisted between them to make it all fuzzy. To clean out the head joint, I have cut off one end of the Pad-Saver and bent the wire back on itself, crimping it with pliars. That makes one end which is fuzzy. It works really well to get out all of the moisture which is up against the cork. I wash the Pad-Saver periodically.
I do find that playing the hammered dulcimer standing rather than sitting has the advantage that it gets me up above the danger zone around the seated musicians, where flute players dribble and fiddle players jab bows about.
Not being ready to run out to music store, I improvised a cleaning rod out of a coat hangar. I cut a piece of hangar, formed a loop at both ends, wrapped the whole thing in electrical tape, and use a piece of cloth t-shirt drawn through one of the loop ends.
). I also keep paper napkins (serviettes to our Chiffsters beyond the Pond, I believe) to clear away any excess cork grease so that it doesn’t get on the swabbing cloth and eventually render it unabsorbent.
The round chamois part of it is exactly flute hole size.
