Soft Foam Push Me, Pull Me. Whistle Cleaner

After trying a bunch of different materials to dry out whistles, I believe I have the ultimate material. The closed cell foam used in packing high end products turns out to be great stuff for drying out your whistle. The foam is soft and non-scratching, inexpensive (free if you score a few pieces of packing!) and absorbs moisture in one pass. The foam is also available in grocery stores and is sold for general cleaning sponges. I bought six, 1/8" wood dowels and a small roll of crafting wire and made a bunch of these little jewels in about a half hour.

Cut the dowel a couple of inches longer than the whistle you want to clean. Cut a piece of foam into a sufficient thickness to wrap around the dowel and fit snugly into the whistle bore. Try a couple of trial pieces of foam for fit and then wrap the foam around the dowel end and bind it tightly in the middle with the fine craft wire. Make six or eight wraps with the wire and then twist the ends of the wire around each other and squeeze down with a pair of pliers to bury the wire ends. That should do the trick and you have a nifty rig to dry and clean your whistle!

Insert the foam end into the whistle and Push It through and then Pull it back. Whistle will be so clean that it squeeks. Foam washes and dries very fast and lasts a long time. This is so easy you can make one for your friends! If you have large bore and small bore whistles you can make your dowel a little longer and put a different size piece of sponge on each end to clean all your whistles with one dowel.

I use the drill and gun sock (see last years article on that device) and then use the Push Me, Pull Me for the final pass when getting whistles ready to ship.

Posted by The WhistleSmith at January 2, 2006 4:50 PM | TrackBack