Nanohedron wrote:
cavefish wrote:
... from what the pros say one is not supposed to remove all the moisture on a swab just the beads
I've never heard that, but there's this to consider: Even if you swab out your flute with rod and cloth, there will always be a scant amount of moisture left behind anyway.
Unless you are in a very humid environment a little moisture will help keep the wood hydrated and leather pads soft if you have those. There is a delicate balance between too much or too little, both which can lead to cracking.
So if your bore is conditioned with the right amount of oil (completely absorbed) the water you are removing with a swab is sitting on the interior surface. Removing much of this will keep it from pooling somewhere and eventually molding or causing cracks due to minor imperfections of the oiled surface allowing moisture to infiltrate. But you won't get it all and that's ok.
So a feather may do to shake things up, or a bit of silk or cotton on a stick.
I have a flute I have played regularly for 20 years that I seldom swab, But due to the pressures of the moment I haven't played for a month. I know when I start playing it again I will need to be much more careful about swabbing. This is because the tiny bit of moisture that lives inside the flute when played daily is now gone.
A flute is a living thing, somehow.