Hello.
This is in regards to a fife, but it would be an issue with any wooden instrument. What is the best product / liquid to clean wood with?
The fife I just bought is very very old and very very cruddy. The only product I found that claims to clean woodwinds of every oil, dust, skin goo etc…is The Doctor’s Product MP Mouthpiece cleaner.
Has anyone used this? Is there something better out there? The fife is very old so I don’t want to use anything that could damage the wood.
I use a buffing wheel. You don’t want to take off the original finish and patina.
You can also use a white scotchbrite, this will buff without scratching. I have also used silver polish to clean the wood also.
Dragon,
The Doctor’s mouthpiece cleaner is just for that-plastic mouthpieces (clarinet). He has a wood cleaner, as described from his website:
Doctor’s Wood Cleaner™ – DA6
Exclusive proprietary formulation as used by museums (e.g. The Vatican, British Museum, Louvre) to remove old wax, grime, etc. and unclog wood pores to allow the wood to “breathe” again. Will not dissolve shellac or varnish but will remove organic waxes, and accumulated dirt. Waxes and other organic materials can form acidic residues that break down wood structure over time. This special formulation of cleaners (pH neutral) will not raise the grain or dehydrate the wood, safe for keywork. Excellent preparation step for application of microcrystalline wax below.
The microcrystalline wax he mentions, I’ve been using around the embouchure hole of my flute because I have a little sensitivity to some woods.
Here’s the link to his accessories page:
I don’t know if the Doctor’s Product’s Wood Cleaner removes any patina or not (but it would probably be safer than Silver cleaner as Jon said he’s used in the past)-you might wish to email the Doctor and ask about his cleaner.
If there is no film-forming-finish (shellac, varnish, laquer), then go for tepid soapy water and a rag / white (non abrasive) 3M scotchbrite pad and elbow grease.Worth a shot before buying something special. Then replace the oil and break it in again. With this method you get to choose how much gunk and patina you remove
If there is some kind of slick finish other than oil, best to know what the finish is before applying any product. If it’s some wazoo toxic cyanide-based laquer, better talk to Loren.
Generally I clean the outside of flutes with almond oil, a cloth,
and elbow grease. Might be a place to start.
It stinks, but I have it on very good authority (from another collector of very old fifes), that a good ‘solvent’ to use is plain white vinegar. For some reason (she claims, and I agree after using it), it doesn’t dry out the wood, but it does dissolve away surface crud and whatever other schmutz you’ll find living inside your old fife.
Soak a clean cotton cloth in white vinegar (I used squares cut from an old but clean t-shirt, about 4 inches on a side), and run the soaked cloth through the bore of the fife using a cleaning rod (looks like a humongous needle), or make one from a coat hanger and needlenose pliers.
After you’ve done that a few times (use a clean cloth each time), and you’ve convinced yourself it’s de-cruddified (I like that word), do the same thing with clean water until it doesn’t smell like vinegar so much.
Then, let the fife dry vertically, and thoroughly, and then oil it with regular almond oil (I completely immerse my fifes for 24 hours to oil them).
Again, this assumes that we’re talking mostly about the inner bore, which is more susceptible to crud build up. For the outside, I bet the vinegar would be just as effective.
I used the above procedure to clean up a fife from around 1840 or so, and it came out pretty good, and is quite playable.
It still smells of vinegar somewhat, but I like vinegar on my fries (or chips, if you’re from that side of the pond), so I don’t mind so much.
Good luck!
-Chris
P.S. - What did you get? Where did you get it? Got pics?
And if I sound a little funny when I answer the phone, it’s only due to the Hazmat suit I’m wearing. 
Loren
Hey Fyffer,
Antiques dealer at a Civil War Expo in Vermont. He specialized in Civil War things and he had about 5 fifes. This is the cool part: One fife caught my attention; it was shaped very nicely and had a very crisp, nicely carved blow hole. It also had a lovely patch of yellowish/gold wood (which I will return to…). It was so covered in hard muck I thought it had water damage. But the “damage” scraped off with a finger nail. So, I played it and it sounded good for being so nasty. I ended up getting the fife. I took it home and started cleaning it. The outside was very dirty, but oddly enough the inside was dusty but not as bad as the outside. So, I tried using a tooth bush and some cleaner for antiques (all natural, no petroleum products etc) and that got SOME of the grime off. Most of the grime was so solidified that I could only take it off with a finger nail. So, rather than use my finger nails…I used….drum roll a razor blade. Yes..a very very sharp razor blade. It was the only way that worked…so hour after hour (it took about two days, around 6 hours) of gently removing layer after layer of nastyness with a razor blade.
Now…remember that patch of yellowish/gold wood….well it grew and grew. The entire belly of the fife is yellow/gold and the rest is a very dark brown…almost black. Very nice indeed, the fife is oddly strong in the first octave and very crisp in the second. It was a find, and I am so happy with it!