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 Posted: Tue Aug 24, 2004 1:09 pm
Stormbird_Rising Good tip for cleaning out mouthpieces for brass: VINEGAR Just stick some vinegar on a cotton swab or Q-tip and swab it around and inside the mouthpiece until you get all the crap off it, then just rinse the vinegar off with water. Trust me... I was able to get about 10 years worth of God knows what out of my school trombone mouthpiece in about 5 minutes of cleaning it out with vinegar. Hmm! I never thought of that...awesome thanks......I knew about the whole bathtub thing...but i would usually just soak my mouthpiece in its own cup then take a Q tip to it...but i never knew vinegar would work! Thanks!
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Posted: Tue Aug 24, 2004 2:31 pm
Deissdaemonea -A note to woodwind players: If your key pads get sticky, I've found that a good way to get them unstickied is to take a new dollar bill (you know, when it's all crisp and new and stuff and you can feel the grain of the paper still) and carefully slide it underneath the key that's sticky. Press the key down for a few seconds, and, leaving the key pressed down, slide the dollar bill out. Sometimes this has to be done to one key a few times. whee But it works well. They also have special paper you can buy for it, but a dollar bill is easier to use. Hope that was somewhat useful. Regular paper works to for that too, but it can't be cheapo copier paper. We usually used notebook paper. Also, here's a tip from the woodwind instructor at my high school, for clarinetists. Take a Q-Tip (or cotton swab if we have to be generic), dip it in rubbing alcohol, and then insert it into each of the key holes. Whirl it around a couple times, then remove. This gets some of the gunk out from inside your holes. And this is probably the only forum where that last sentence would not automatically be misconstrued. I do have a question... Clarinet mouthpieces. Anyone got a really good way to clean those out? I used to have a little brush, but I lost it, and my mouthpiece is oh-so-gross.
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Posted: Tue Aug 24, 2004 9:48 pm
I have one of those brushes; it came with my new clarinet. So since I use it, I don't have an alternate solution, sorry. Actually, I think I remember a senior my freshman year telling me that soaking it in vinagar works. I wouldn't get it on the cork, though.
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Posted: Wed Aug 25, 2004 1:45 pm
Yeah, I was always careful not to let the cork get wet when I cleaned my mouthpiece. I'll try the vinegar thing though.... it's worth a shot.
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Posted: Tue Sep 07, 2004 8:49 pm
I play drums so no cleanin' there...
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Posted: Wed Sep 08, 2004 6:43 pm
Seeing as there is some of us who also plays a string instrument, I have decided to help you guys there..ignore what they said about soaking your instrument in the bathtub of course..that could have bad side effects for your precious Violin/Cello whatever you play ^.^.
First off..everytime after you use your instrument, you should wipe it down with a soft cloth, making sure to get up underneath the strings and in the bowing area. Make sure that you get all rosin off your instrument, and strings, as well as fingerprints and such. Rosin can become a pain in the a** if you dont do this every day because it sticks to your instrument. Every once in awhile your bow will need a new coat of rosin to keep it able to stick to your strings and in good condition. Also: Make sure that you clean off the excess rosin dust on the wood part of your bow..the longer you leave it the more stickie it will get. About every other month, you should polish your instrument with wood polish..make sure that the polish you use is directly recommended from the shop you got your instrument from so that it wont strip your finish. Every two years you should change your strings as well, if none of them havent broken within that time span. Make sure that you wipe down the chin rest carefully with water once a month, and you take you instrument in for repairs once a year, for fine tuning, adjustments, and to make sure that there arent any cracks or warpings found. When you put your instrument up, make sure to cover it with a cloth/covering that is usually provided and store it in a cool, dry place where the temperature doesnt change often. Happy playing friends ^.^
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Posted: Wed Sep 08, 2004 7:02 pm
I'm not sure if it was just my piece of crap flute or something else, but the part of the body the foot joint attaches to should probably be wiped off with a cloth or something also. I never cleaned piece of crap, so eventually the foot joint got stuck to the body. We had to use trumpet valve oil on it. Then when we wiped it off, my cloth turned black. Goes to show the importance of cleaning instruments. Also, sometimes springs (at least on piece-of-crap) have a habbit of falling out of place, so make sure they're where they're supposed to be if you're having problems playing some notes.
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Posted: Thu Sep 09, 2004 5:00 am
Ha ha ha. Yes the magical abilities of valve oil. I believe my band director once told me all the abilities it can do- like undo rusty locks, stuck spit valves, stuck valves (like you can't unscrew them), and etc. He also told a fun way to get rid of a bunch of (brass) mouthpieces- make a windchime out of them. xp
Thanks Dark Star Soul for the info on cleaning the string instruments. 3nodding
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Posted: Thu Sep 09, 2004 4:47 pm
Your welcome, glad I could help! ^.^ I love my precious violin..even more then my flag..and my flags my precious..^.^
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Posted: Thu Sep 09, 2004 6:35 pm
Deissdaemonea Flutists, you should get your flute fine tuned once a year. I've had mine for over a year, and it needs to go in for adjustments and whatnot. Yeah. Adjustments, a good professional cleaning, and your instrument feels better. Neko Kafweenu, that's a good way to clean out a flute once you're finished playing. If you really really love your flute, clean it out like that after every time you play. It'll love you in return for it. 3nodding They have what I call a Blue Cloth, and it does wonders for removing fingerprints. Say, before a concert to make it look all shiny. I am going to bed now, and shall state my knowledge of saxomaphone cleaning tomorrow. o.o mine is over due for a fine tune... but i have nowhere to take it... i'll find away eventually... i have a cleaning cloth like a clarinet... it has the string with a cloth at the end that i run through... and i use my cleaning rod for the mouth piece... i have a yellow cloth made by woodwind and brasswind that was suggested by a woman who worked for brass and woodwind that said it was a great cloth to polish your flute with...it is very nice...all the other flute players wanted it... a new dollar bill is a trick that our band director told the clarinets when the pad's stuck... it is a very good trick however i have the paper...
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Posted: Sat Sep 11, 2004 5:10 am
Flute. Cleaning tip and story.
The good ol' spit stick ^^ (or flute rod)
I like to use one that has a cloth going all the way to one end. You can get some that have a felt cloth or something smooshed inbetween two rods, but the problem with those is that you can't clean up the one place that gets the most spit stuck in it very well - the head peice. Just make sure that you can get it all up and you really should be fine. If there's something wrong with the flute, before blaming it on it being dirty check the screws. You have no idea how many times my friends have gone crazy saying that their flute no longer worked or something only for me to hand them a screwdriver sweatdrop
Now, for taking off the cork part (you know...the screwey part....Ok, so I don't know what it's called, leemee alone) I have heard never to do this, but I've also seen others that do it all the time to clean. I'm not really sure about this. I like not to because that seems to be the part of my flute that's most easily misplaced sweatdrop . Anyway, does anyone have any idea if it matters if you take it out? Should I take it out this very second and make sure that there aren't craploads of bacteria in my flute right now?
STORYTIME!:
Once there was a girl that never cleaned her flute after playing it, and you should after every time you play, so her flute was probably quite disgusting. Anyway, one day she came into class, her icky flute ready, got it together, got ready to play, and then a big earwig crawled out onto her mouth.
-The end.
Lovely story wasn't it?
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Posted: Mon Sep 20, 2004 6:17 am
My cello is due for a restringing...at least the A string is.
I've got a few bottles of cello polish. They make scratches and dents disappear domokun ...Well, all they do is camouflage them with more varnish, but you can't tell they're there anymore.
There's a thing called a "Dampit" for string instruments. It's basically a long thin sponge inside a rubber tube with holes in it, and a rubber cap on top to keep it from falling inside your instrument (it goes in one of the F-holes). You soak the sponge and then leave it in the instrument; it's for keeping your instrument from warping during dry weather.
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Posted: Mon Sep 20, 2004 2:31 pm
Aryah I used to clean my horn... always a big pain in the a**... I used to just use valve oil on the slides, too, but that became to much of a pain, and a mess. sweatdrop chapstick doesn't get all over the horn, and make it hard to hold. 3nodding (and I only started using it b/c someone else had, and I've never had any problems w/ it. Like the ingredients messing with the metal or anything like that, but then, I use the cheap stuff, that really doesn't do much anyway xp ) What also works is this pink sticky valve oil just for your valves (not the keys). A cheaper alternative to chapstick would be plain vaseline. That's the part of the chapstick that lubricates your horn anyways domokun
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Posted: Mon Sep 20, 2004 5:46 pm
Keltzy I'm not sure if it was just my piece of crap flute or something else, but the part of the body the foot joint attaches to should probably be wiped off with a cloth or something also. I never cleaned piece of crap, so eventually the foot joint got stuck to the body. We had to use trumpet valve oil on it. Then when we wiped it off, my cloth turned black. Goes to show the importance of cleaning instruments. Also, sometimes springs (at least on piece-of-crap) have a habbit of falling out of place, so make sure they're where they're supposed to be if you're having problems playing some notes. Just a tip to all flute players, including you, if you get your foot piece stuck to the body, use cork grease (or chapstick, anything of the consistency will probably do the trick) that should make it easier to slip on and off. I have a 'spit stick' as I call it, work just like the metal/plastic rods, except it's fuzzy... not now... it has spit on it. They work well, and the blue clothes, make the flute very shiny, me and two of my flute friends, we have fun making them shiny. I'm my flute is going in for a tuneup, since a few of my pads are dieing and it's getting all nasty and stuff but I cleaned it in the sink at school before a game once. Not to mention the second trill key is jammed... probably a popped screw...but I don't know.
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Posted: Tue Oct 19, 2004 5:30 pm
Just a little tid-bit about my cleaning methods:
I use the trumpet in the bathtub technique with the snake and everything. I usually clean it about once a month sometimes more if I practiced on it A LOT. To clean my valves I just fill a yogurt container up to the point where the springy part reaches the "main" part and let that sit until I'm done with the rest of my trumpet.
After that, I re-grease my slides with tuning slide grease... It feels different from 'bone grease and it's orange.... and I re oil my vavles too.
Also! Even though my trumpet is a school trumpet, I to take care of it as if i's my own.
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