I’ve got a wooden fipple block that’s catching a lot of moisture, and I’d like to get that moisture to slide right off. What’s the best way to do that? I was wondering if there’s a teflon coating for wood that would work.
For my recorders I use Dupenol.
I buy mine from Lazar’s Early Music in California.
One application last quite a while.
My wooden whistles (Milligans) all have Delrin heads, but it seems to work there as well.
JD
No Teflon! It will cause breath moisture to condense in little droplets that will increase clogging. A detergent of some sort will let the moisture “sheet” away. Duponol is one such commercial product and it works well, but you can make your own for practically nothing. A drop or two of Dawn dish washing liquid or similar in a couple of ounces of water works perfectly. Put it in a little dropper bottle like the ones that eye drops come in and you can take it with you and use it whenever needed. This works on any and all windway materials.
I’ve heard that you can use a bit of the liquid that’s used in automatic dish washers in the same way, but I haven’t tried it.
Careful with anything used by automatic dishwashers, some of that stuff is pretty nasty. High pH, for example.
As for Teflon, yep, it does the opposite of what you want - it’s hydrophobic. Moisture tries to get away from it, so you’ll get droplets. Soap works the other way around. Just be careful with the dishwasher stuff, it’s safer to use dish washing liquid designed for hand washing.
Detergents are both hydrophyllic and hydrophobic; yes, that’s possible, it’s different parts of the molecule. This is how detergents will disperse oil in water with the hydrophobic parts on the oil droplets and the hydrophillic parts pointing to the water.
Detergents will disrupt and weaken surface tension in water by interfering with the attraction between water molecules. If you break the surface tension, then water will much more easily be blown out of the airway rather than clogging it as water droplets.
Agreed, but I’m talking about a VERY dilute solution.
I tried some Dawn, in a little bit of water. Works very well. Thanks.
For the record, Duponol is Sodium Lauryl Sulfate. I couldn’t find Duponol, but they do sell Sodium Lauryl Sulfate online. It’s kind of pricey though. The dish soap seems to be doing the trick, so I’m not going to worry about it.
That and Sodium Laureth Sulfate are the main surfactants in Dawn, and a great many other liquid soaps, detergents and shampoos. No need to buy the online stuff.
Mostly I like the way the bubbles come out the end of the whistle…
Best wishes.
Steve