Handy swab method

Whistle
1

Hi All!

Wooden whistles need swabbing all the time. No wooden instrument should be left wet - no matter how well sealed it might appear.

Once will notice the owners of all wooden wet-woodwinds cleaning their instruments before they get put away - applies to flutes, oboes, clarinets and any other instrument made of wood that gets exposed to the direct humid breath of a player - and nothing is closer than a wooden whistle!

There’s been a few posts on low-cost swabs thast actually work and are not a lot of hassle.

The main criteria are:

  1. Must not cost more than the whistle!
  2. Must not cost more than a cent to prepare.
  3. Must be able to reach right up to the fipple block and clean efectively in the upper-most crevices.
  4. Must not require expensive machinery.
  5. Must not take more than a minute to make, use and dispose of.

I’m not sure if this method has been posted before, but can’t hurt to pass on the experience.

My favorite low-cost, low effor swab takes about 2 minutes to set up and works both as a moisture swab and an oiling swab.

Here it is:

Materials:

  1. A pack of bamboo kebab skewars (makes 50 swabs or more depending on the swab)

  2. An old cotton tee-shirt that is no longer fit for fashion (we all have these - don’t throw them away - they are excellent stuff!).

tools:
A pen knife or other sharp thingy.

Steps:

  1. Take a skewar and split the blunt end with your penknife to create a split around 3 inches long.

  2. Take the tee-shirt and remove the lower hem - cut a long strip of cloth 2 inches wide.

  3. Wedge an end of the strip into the split in the skewar.

  4. wind the skewar with enough fabric to fit snugly in the whistle. The fabric should extend beyond the end of the skewar by at least 1/2 inch - this allows the ability for the fabric to get right into the crevices around the fipple-block!

  5. trim the strip - you now have a perfect swab!.

  6. feed the swab into the whistle using a twisting motion same as the winding so it does not get loose and fall off the skewar.

  7. Twist/wind the swab to the end of the whistle. Spend a little time grinding the fabric around the fipple-block to remove all moisture and biuld-ups.

  8. Remove the swab while using the same winding motion.

When using a swab for oiling - do the same as above, but dip the end of the swab in oil before inserting. Then use the swab to apply oil to the exterior.

ALWAYS REMOVE MOISTURE BEFORE OILING A WOODEN-WHISTLE_BORE!!!

NEVER LEAVE A WOODEN WHISTLE TO LIE WITH A WET BORE. It only takes a few minutes for the moisture to float-out oil and get access to the grain .. not so bad if conditions are humid, but if it’s dry then the moisture gets into the grain and evaporates. When water evaporates from wood - the wood shrinks. If the wood shrinks too rapidly it will exceed the elasticity in the grain and will strat a crack. - some woods are more tolerant, but all wwoods will fail if they are pushed too hard.

It works well to have 2 skewar-swabs with you at all times. One is for moisture, one is for oil. If you are at the session or away from home, it helps to pre-oil the oiling swab and put a plastic hood over it to keep it fresh and stop it randomly oiling your whistle-roll :wink: I have found the little ziplock-baggies favoured by coke dealers to be ideal for this - they can be gotten at most supermarkets.

Oil for wood can be almond oil, walnut oil or light-grade machine oil(clarinet bore oil).

The best almond oil is pure-cold-pressed oil. DO not use almond oil that is specifically prepared for skin-treatment - this may contain sodium-laural-sulphate that will eventually turn your wooden whistle into a jelly-blob. (I have a bucket full of jelly blobs that were once many varieties of wood that I soaked in sodium laural sulphate for a 6 months).

If you cannot obtain a trustworthy supply of almond or walnut oil - do what our ancestors have been doing for thousands of years for this very purpose: Get almonds or walnuts wrap them in a cloth (cotton) and bash them till they are paste. THe cloth is now soaked with high-grade organic, unadulterated nut-oil. Use the cloth to oil the wood.

Oh - and another great thing about cloth is you can leave a strip on an ant-nest overnight and use the cloth as a dressing that has better anti-biotic properties than anything the chemist can sell you .. OPPS! Sorry, that’s medical advice - I’m not allowed to do that .. but then, we are only treating whistleshere - humans have been doing this stuff for 25 thousand years or more .. and I never knew a human that didn’t enjoy a tune (it’s a great way to pick robots :wink:

2

AAAAaaarrrr …

While we’re on the subject!!! (mwa ha ha).

Windways .. (pause for dramatic sting … :smiley: )

“Oh master .. is the windway truly the breath of life?”

Yesssss Grassssss hoppperrrAAAAArrrrrr … But watch out fo the hitch-hikerzzzzz .. AAAAAAAaaarrrrrr (kof kof .. [haaaaaaarkhhh] .. .. ahem ..)

Our lovely sweet chamically enhanced pheramone-enriched [insert phizer add here] breath. Is not just pure air containing the carbon that we didn’t want. It also contains (dramatic sting again) .. organic-self-replicating-organisms!!! AND gasses that we never mention and .. how can I say this .. nutrients we are yet to digest??? .. or are not efficient enough to process . (dang .. there goes my promotion .. ah well .).

Eh??? well lemme tell ya - what I find in teh bits of whistles that collect what we choose to ignore are not ignored by .. (sweet music and cherubs) .. NATURE!!! (aaaahhhh ..niceness for all who observe :wink: )

And wot do I find in these places!!! ..

crud and snott - tat’s wot I foind :wink:

Get used to it we aRE A WALKING/TALKING MICROCOSM OF STUFF THAT HITCH-=HIKES IN OUR ARMPITS .. and our whistles :frowning:

This cruddy stuff enjoys the tunes so much that it gett a big crowd - millions of them! - too bad they don’t vote in music-comps .. but after a while, they will do to us what the fans of “pop” music do to pop artists - they will kill th music!!!

I abdure all humans - keep your audience human - get tha pathogens outa your windway or you will be serving a culture you did not chooze!!!

OK - a strip of the afore-mentioned tee-shirt cloth does the fan-sorting for ya-all.
A strip that starts at 1/8 inch and ends at 1/2 inch (yess - a triangle :slight_smile: :slight_smile: ) about 8 inches long.

feed the tee-triangel into the windway top using a little sliver of kebab-skewar (very thin - a kebab-skewar can be split exceedingly thin because of teh incredible longitudinal grain of bamboo and still retain impressive strength) .. you can catch the end of the cloth with the skewar and it exits and rides the cloth over the ramp so’s you can grab it and pull teh rest of the strip through.

This wind-way pull-through usually works first time - in bad cases where the crud is guinness-feuled or cheeeeezzze- fueled, it mitgh take 2 or 3 pulls-through.

Windways are the most sensitive part of yer whustlule .,. be kind to it and don’t pull anything through it more abrasive than cotton.

(Edited to say: I’m now off to check out a performance of Aoife Granville at the local pub (session to follow).. the world is getting to be a much better place - on account of you all here and others of like-mind - what a fabulous universe it is!!! :slight_smile: )

3

I do something very similar but instead of a skewer I use a bamboo chopstick. This is a great excuse to go out for Chinese or Japanese food.

I recommend letting a whistle dry for a day or so after swabbing before applying oil. Even the best swabbing can only get out just so much moisture. Leave the whistle out in the open for full evaporation from the bore to take place before oiling the instrument.

4

Hush, you two. You’re scaring the children.