Any suggestion would very welcome. Thanks !
I might get a swab stick and a scrap piece of cloth..
http://www.amazon.com/Yamaha-Wooden-Flute-Cleaning-Rod/dp/B0002F71XC
Cheers,
Or, as long as it’s not made of something that can be damaged by getting excessively wet, you could just run water through it then set it on end to dry…
A regular flute cleaning rod is too short… regarding washing the low d whistle with water, is not something that I would do too often…
A tenor recorder or bass recorder cleaning rod would probably do the trick. When I swab my high D whistles, I use a soprano recorder rod, which works fine.
But with a metal or plastic whistle, there’s no danger of swelling damage. So most people just allow the whistle to air dry before putting it away.
Buy length of 1/4" dowel (or metric equivalent - about 6mm) from a hardware or DIY store - hardwood if you can get it as it’ll last longer/be less likely to get snapped, but ordinary pine will do. Cut off a length a bit (2-3"/5-6cm)longer than the longest joint of your instrument. Lightly sand the ends so they are smooth and splinter free. Use a piece of thin, soft, absorbent cloth - old cotton sheet or pillow case is good, or silk. If you cut a rectangle about 8"/20cm wide by 18"/46cm long it won’t bunch up too bulkily in the tube but will be long enough for handy use. If you hem it, go for very small, un-bulky hems. Just fold a small corner across the top of your stick, then fold the “shoulders” thus formed around the stick and roll/twist the cloth around the stick a little. Then insert in the tube and push through, twisting as you go. If you’ve done it right (soon becomes habitual) it won’t pull off the stick - no need for an eye in it. (I think sticks with eyes are a nuisance.) When it pokes out the far end, hold the cloth there, pull the stick back out and pull the cloth on through, or pull all back together. If your tube is cylindrical you shouldn’t have any problems at all. If it is a conoid bore, work from the wide end and don’t force too much cloth in, but as the cloth will naturally be tapered if arranged as I describe, that too should work fine. To get up to the fipple block in the head-joint (or in a one-piece, non-tunable whistle), insert as above, then pull the stick out and push a bit more cloth up into the tube with it, always twisting, and repeat as necessary, until you have tamped it up to the end (visible in the window), keep the stick in, twist again and withdraw all.
An alternative is to tie a soft, flexible string to one corner of your cloth and weight the end with a narrow but heavy (non-scratchy!) bead of some kind that will fit freely through the bore. Drop that down the tube and pull all through - doesn’t work for the head-joint though - you still need a rod for that.
Very cheap, totally DIY-able.
If you want a shop-based solution, there are large recorder, saxophone or clarinet swab-sticks (like soft bottle-brushes) and “pad-savers” you can buy… but they won’t reach right up to the fipple-block because of their central wire and end-cap: the cloth and stick is more than adequate and more versatile, plus you can wipe the outside of the tube with the cloth if you get spittle/condensation running around! As others have said, there’s no need to swab out regularly on a plastic or metal whistle, though an occasional wash is a good idea: but it is best to dry a wooden one if that is what you have.
Good luck!