What are you using to swab your flute? Pat O says only silk should be used.
What do you use? What sort of stick do you use?
Also how ‘religious’ are you about doing it?
Do you skip it sometimes?
Swabbing? Dry as it’s been around here, I’m not swabbing at all. I figure that the wood needs all the moisture it can get right now. Hopefully the situation here will change soon, and I can start worrying about too much flute moisture again. They say that it might rain in the next day or two (30-40% chance). Man I hope it does. For the first time in recent memory, my father-in-law has nothing to say about the mold index, as it’s currently too dry for mold to grow.
Sent from the hill country of Texas where it’s currently as dry as a popcorn fart. Currently at D4 on the drought meter.
- Oops. I just realized that I didn’t answer your question, Jim. I use silk, but it’s only because I found a bassoon swab not long after I started playing that was silk. That gave me a pretty good sized piece to work with.
Edited to bring me back from that tangent that I went off on. 
I use silk and swab every time I play. Aren’t we supposed to do that? I should say that I’m not quite so religious about it with my delrin and pvc flutes, but I usually do it with those, too.
Pat
I use a normal piece of cloth (cotton), I usually swab before going to bed, and sometimes during the day when I play for a very long time. I do tend to skip it sometimes, when I’m too lazy, but anyway I always disassemble the flute at the end of the day (that way moisture should dry in the night).
why silk and not cotton?
i use cotton when i’m done playing.
Fewer loose fibers and less lint in the bore, I imagine is the rationale.
Not entirely. Silk is much more compressable than cotton and less prone to getting stuck. Now, if you swab properly , ie. from the narrow end to the wide end, you will never have problems.
If you want to remove water fast and good microfibre is the best.
For clarinets silk is much better than any other material, because the top end of a clarinet has a register tube sticking into the bore and swabs tend to catch behind the tube. Silk has less tendency to get caught.
I use silk with a bit of almond oil on the cloth. I don’t use cotton… never… ever. My intent isn’t to dry the flute completely but to break up any large globs of moisture that might sit in it. The flute is not happy being totally dry. Cotton can take all the moisture out. The oil on the silk further reduces wicking and puts a bit of oil in the bore.
I clean the flute every time after playing it. MM told me that he cleans the flute the next morning but since I don’t play like he does, I won’t clean my flute like he does.
On alternate Thursdays I put the flute in the dishwasher.
I don’t quite understand the cotton absorption thing. If you put oil on a cloth, doesn’t that render it less absorbent? Do people usually use a new cloth every time?
For the salt-spoon keys?
If you put oil on a cloth, doesn’t that render it less absorbent?
Yes, an oily cotton rag would absorb less moisture. But you don’t want the cloth to be saturated with oil. That would be messy and would drip too much oil on the bore.
Thanks for the tip. I had-- thoughtlessly – been taking the keys off the flute before I put it into the washer. I will leave them on now.
I swab my flute every time I play. I’ve played tenor saxophone for several years, and have seen the kind of deposits that build up in a hard rubber mouthpieces if you don’t swab them regularly. They build-up is almost like the mineral scale you get in plumbing fixtures and coffee makers, and it’s very difficult to remove.
My flute is an M&E ebonite model, which means it’s made of the same material as the sax mouthpieces. I don’t know if wood or delrin is subject to same build up, but the stuff in your spit and in condensation that isn’t water is going to end up someplace, either in the wood or on the surface of the bore. I swab out as much of it as possible.
The moisture in a sax mouthpiece is probably more spit than condensation. I would expect the opposite to be true of what’s in a flute. However, given that Irish music and beer go together so well, I’ll keep swabbing.
I cut a little piece of Sham-Wow (no joke!!) and I use a nicely made bamboo rod.
I tend to use these little numbers right here…
http://www.amazon.com/HW-Products-U-CLM-Pad-Saver®-multi-color/dp/B0007XFE38
They are intended to be left in the bore but I wouldn’t recommend that for a wooden flute. I just use them to swab the excess moisture out of all the sections, and it’s long enough to clean the headjoint as well. The clarinet ones are the best size for wooden flute. Silk swabs are okay but I’ve never had luck getting all the moisture out with them. I also have a couple spares that I use for oiling. I’ve never had any issues with them leaving lint in the bore since they changed to the new material.
I just shake the big drops out and put 'er away. It’s a roll-type case so it is not air tight anyway. I thought the purpose of oiling the bore is to have the moisture slake out more quickly.
lewis
Silk swabs are okay but I’ve never had luck getting all the moisture out with them. That’s a good reason to use them.
…the purpose of oiling the bore is to have the moisture slake out more quickly. Yep.
“Silk swabs are okay but I’ve never had luck getting all the moisture out with them. That’s a good reason to use them.
…the purpose of oiling the bore is to have the moisture slake out more quickly. Yep.”
It’s a good thing if you you’re in a dry place. But my Hawkes flute got mildew in the bore because the silk swab I was using just wasn’t enough. Switched to the pad savers and never had a problem again. Everyone has to come up with there own system, also I bet some people get less moisture in the bore than other. Once I get cranking I get a steady stream of drips coming out throughout the night.
I knew a chap who routinely did that, and I had to fix his nice old 19th century flute twice:
- He smashed a tenon when, during the violent shaking operation, it connected with the leg of the chair he was sitting in.
- The LH cracked because of the amount of moisture that remained inside.
So, I wouldn’t recommend that approach. It really doesn’t matter whether you use silk, cotton or something else (although that observation about silk not being enough is interesting). All you need to do is get rid of the most of the water, and spread the rest around where it will quickly evaporate, or at least uniformly be absorbed. If you just leave it, it tends to pool in the bottom of the LH section, roughen the bore and cause distortion, even to the point of splitting.
I don’t know the effect of water on ebonite, but I’d still swab synthetic flutes to avoid bacterial growth. I used to repair metal flutes and can still smell the smell!
I wouldn’t put oil on the swabbing cloth - oil floats on water, so I can’t see it doing any good. Better to oil the flute before playing than after.
Terry
Bacteria can build up a thin film on the surface of a delrin bore but are easily removed by swabbing - no grain for them to penetrate of course. I put softened beeswax on a cloth and swab the bore with that as I believe that beeswax has antibacterial properties - honey certainly has.
It’s a good idea to regularly check the position of the cork/stopper in the headjoint after swabbing that part out, as the action of swabbing can push it up the bore over time, depending on how easy it is to move it - and how vigorous you are with the swab.
Garry
How about standing a flute up to drain for an hour or so, before putting it away?
I confess that I am sometimes afraid of doing the flute more harm by swabbing it (the wooden rod)
than not.
I advise against it. Moisture will in all probability collect in the joint interstices. A wooden rod, particularly one that is swaddled in cloth, isn’t going to cause problems since reasonable people do their swabbing in a reasonable manner; you would have to viciously stab and jab at your flute with the rod to cause any damage worth the name. And I’ll bet that you don’t do that, am I right?