fluffy swab type - Chiff and Fipple Forums (2025)

Back in my high school band days, all the woodwind players used swabs that were wire rods covered with fluffy material, and sometimes left them in the instrument in the case to continue to absorb moisture. Example of the type I'm talking about: [https://www.amazon.com/dp/B001EQTY9W]

I'm curious if there's a reason these would not be recommended for wooden flutes, as everyone seems to prefer the stick & cloth type of swab, or if it's just down to personal preference.

They're not actually swabs - they're called "pad savers". They keep extraneous moisture from degrading the pads. I use them in both of my Boehm flutes. They can work as swabs, but be careful because they can retain moisture that may be non-beneficial.

Pat

I use a long bamboo cooking chopstick with a piece of "Viva" cloth-like paper towel wrapped around it to dry my flute after playing. Folded two different ways to wrap around the chopstick, it lets me get through the narrow bore at the end, and also thick enough to swab out the headjoint. I like the paper towel approach because it can be discarded after use for a fresh one next time. That eliminates any potential for bacteria or mold to build up in the swab material over time.

I guess the reason it isn't common practice to leave a "wicking" swab inside our flutes, is because our 19th Century style flutes have open tone holes even in keyed versions. So the flute dries out fairly quickly.

Not a fluter, but I'm guessing one of the reasons they're out of favour is that they're made of entirely non-absorbent material.

At school we swabbed our wooden recorders with wire mops that had cotton fibres twisted into them. The same mops are now made with semi-rigid plasticky stuff, which would be great if recorders got full of sand but are as much use as a chocolate fireguard for moisture.

I managed to use the three-pack I'd bought after I found a place that sells the fabric used to make draw-cords for trendy hoodies (tubes of thick knitted cotton about 16 mm wide). I slid some of it over the bristles, and now have functioning mops that remove most of the condensate from high whistles.

I've been very happy with these nice fluffy absorbent cotton swabs.

Clarinet Swab Cleaning Brushes for Clarinet Flute Portable Cleaner Cleaning Part

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I have and old cotton swab like you are describing from the stone age. I use it at home. The older ones were made of cotton. I discovered when my kids started playing instruments the swabs that came them were made of synthetic fibers that shed like crazy. This may be an issue of quality which likely varies. But I felt we were actually breathing the bits of microfiber when we were using them so we went old school with the weighted swabs to drag through their clarinets and saxophones.

Leaving a pad saver or swab inside a wooden flute would seem like a bad idea to me. I sop up a far amount of condensation when I play. Leaving it in there might grow mold.

I used bits of cloth on the plastic or wood versions of the metal sticks that look like giant needles that come with boehm flutes. After years of messing with varies rags and bits of chamois I bought a Hodge Silk for flutes for a small amount of money and find it is easy to use, seems to dry quite quickly and can be rinsed easily. It also can be drug through the bore like a swab, or wrapped up a bit around the eye end of the stick to make a gentle mop that gets all the way to the base of the cork in the head. Since I also play wooden whisltes I picked up their recorder size. This come in handy for the flute as the flute size was a bit too big for the foot joint.

As a cautionary tale I recently talked to a fellow who regularly used the metal version and without noticing ended up gouging up the inside of his flute over time.

I have a flute flag style swab that I made up following this type of design from a sewn on microfiber cloth and graphite rod arrow shaft.

https://flutacious.com/products/flute-flag-take-down

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I use a Flute-flag type swab for the headjoint initial wiping, then follow it by wrapping the flag with a silk clarinet rag and re-swabbing. The rag has a string with a weight and I use that for the rest of the flute body. A bit of wiping on the ends of the tenons and I'm done. A visual inspection of the bore in the body parts and things seem fine.

Steve

I use an oboe drop in type of silk cloth: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000EENGGC?re ... tle_1&th=1

Obviously, I don't use it on the headjoint because running anything through the embouchure is a bad idea, but a few shakes of the headjoint and it's fine. I love that the silk oboe cloth has a weight to drop is through body sections and folds up small...plus, I can hang it over the screw on my mic stand and use it easily during gigs.

Eric