As the topic says i need help to find a good, and not to expendsiv flute cleaner

What is exactly your idea of cleaning a flute?

If this is for cleaning the outside & keys of your flute use nothing stronger than a silver polishing cloth. You won't be able to do a thorough job without stripping it down - ie take the keys off a job best left to a professional technician. Trying to do this yourself, unless you are very careful, can cause damage to pads, bent or broken springs & knocking key felts off.

I would not use a silver polishing cloth as some will actually remove silver from the body and keys. Just get a microfiber polishing cloth to remove oils, and use a cotton cloth with isopropyl alcohol (you can buy this at drugstores) to wipe off spit marks, etc. Be careful not to get it close to the pads.

I agree that the first approach is a soft cloth which will get the dust & any grease off. However if the silver itself is tarnished a polishing cloth will do the trick unless very bad. This will remove the tarnish & some silver but such an infinitesimal amount that unless you go mad it will make no difference.
The tarnish is oxidised silver so silver is lost anyway before you start with a cloth.

Actually, depending on whether your flute is silver or not, I just discovered today that toothpaste cleans the yukky stuff off my solid silver Murumatsu. We can't use silver polish on Murumatsus, so I read a tip online today, tried it on my headjoint, and it works great! Just be careful not to get it on the pads or inner workings of your flute.

Toothpaste is too abrasive and I would not recommend using it on a flute. Why can't you polish your Muramatsu flute?



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A solid silver Muramatsu can be polished with a treated polishing cloth. They sell them at Flute World, JL Smith, Carolyn Nussbaum etc.. I use a nice shammy cloth that is treated with polish once or twice a year on my flute around its COA time.



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Many Japanese flute makers put a silver plating on top of their solid silver flute. So, even with solid silver flutes you have to be careful about the polishing process.

I might be lucky enough, but my silver .925 Yamaha does not require any polishing and it has been with me for about four years now. Neither does my Silver .950 Nagahara HJ.

Looks like my hands do the job automatically while I practise on it.

Cleaning is a different thing, but I only clean (wipe) the interior after each session, the embouchure hole, the lip plate and sometimes the tenons. Thats all it seems to need.

i.e, the blue microfiber polishing cloth that came with the flute is still in its original envelope and I have never used it.

I'd second that toothpaste is a real no-no for polishing flutes.
It's too abrasive and will gunk things up. A polishing cloth can work but use it lightly and take your time. Stay away from the pads and bumpers.

It's always better done by a technician using chemicals that do not attack the silver, only the tarnish.

Actually, I'd prefer to not use the chemicals as I don't like the results. A gentle polish is what I'd like. BEst done with the flute being overhauled. Problem is that this takes time and some techs will try to speed things up with increased abrasiveness or machines.

chemicals in toothpaste? Have a look at this (the one I have at home);
Water, Hydrated Silica (!!), Sorbitol, Propylen Glycol, Tetrapotassium Pyrophosphate, Xantham gum, Sodium C14-15 Olefin Sulfonate, Titanium dioxide (!!) Aroma, Sodium Fluoride, Allantoin, Sodium Sacharin, Mentha Arvensis leaf oil, Commiphora Myrra resin extract, Camomilla Recutita flower extract, salvia Oficianalis leaf extract, Sodium methylparaben, Limonene, CI74160, CI77492

Does not look much suitable to apply on a flute, not even a Simba and for our teeth...

"Sodium Sacharin" .......Yes but appealing to the palette and the menthol gives one a refreshing feeling in the mouth !!!! :-)

This short article in Wikipedia is illustrative on what we put in our mouths every morning.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toothpaste

The information I read, where the person suggests toothpaste specifically states it can't be a tartar control or tooth whitening toothpaste....just plain old fluoride toothpaste, which was actually kinda hard to find. I ended up using Aqua Fresh whitening toothpaste before reading the additional info about avoiding those two kinds. Pretty interesting to find out that silver polish and toothpaste use the same basic ingredients. I wonder why the guy suggested toothpaste as being easier on a flute than silver polish since it does contain abrasives? Fortunately, my flute is fine and looks better than it did, but I only used it on part of the head joint where the tarnish was the worst so I won't have issues with pads getting ruined.

As for saccharin, I ended up buying a mouthwash that didn't have that item. Now I gotta go look at my toothpaste to see if it's in there! :P