hello from g.com this is MK Jo uh today
as a request uh by my YouTube friends
this video is to tell you how to do
maintenance work and uh upkeep your de
the Chinese bamboo flute or the seal uh
this one the vertical flute so um before
we start doing any maintenance job you
will need to understand why you want to
do maintenance work with these things
and also what you're trying to do while
doing the maintenance this is not like
some kind of rituals or something like
that it's actually uh doing maintenance
work to make it sound better okay so um
here we can see five different
instruments here this one is the
Japanese fruits shakuhachi which is the
most expensive right here um the
expensive stuff actually comes with very
quality bamboo you can see that the
bamboo it's uh it's very very thick
strong and also the inside you can see
the red coating which is paint and uh
because of the latx
paint it prevents moisture from your
mouth or the air that you breathe in and
out from absorbing into the bamboo and
making it uh like cont contaminating the
bamboo and such so if all your um
moisture from from the from the mouth is
soaked into the bamboo the bamboo will
deteriorate and won't be very good if
you don't dry it out right so the red
stuff actually helps to protect the
inner wall of the bamboo some cheaper
seal or dexd does not have that kind of
coating but if you do have that coating
what you need to do is just rinse the
whole thing
with uh warm or cold water okay after
that basically just dry this thing uh by
air and it's pretty good already so you
don't need to do much maintenance to it
if there are cracks okay what you want
to do is uh seal up the crack because
the cracks will prevent your flute from
making any sound because air is leaking
so to seal up the cracks you can try to
use some uh super glue and uh uh Just
Like Glue on the crack right here you
can see Tiny cracks these cracks are
just on the surface they're not really
like cracks uh right down to the inside
but you can still seal them to prevent
them from cracking more some some of you
may may have seen people wrapping them
with um cords like these okay these
things you can do it or not do it it's
not a must okay these things are
actually just some kind of reinforcement
to make sure that the uh the flute is
held tight and so the crack won't expand
any further but sometimes even with uh
things like that it will still crack if
it want to crack so to prevent it from
cracking um you you are best to keep the
thing at a room temperature and not let
it go super cold super hot super cold
super hot like that so especially like
say in Canada in winter it's very cold
outside don't bring this thing from
inside and then go to the outside and
start playing right away because the
temperature is so cold outside when you
play the hot air goes in and this thing
is warm so the hot and cold will crash
and it will make this thing crack easily
so make sure that you do not play it
outside in a cold okay okay so beside
this one the other stuff is almost the
same but a little bit different here
okay this kind of thing is a very
beginner's grade or medium grade uh seal
comes in three sections it can twist it
open like that okay these sections they
are um mostly made of
brass and you can see the inside here
there's also a brass uh fitting right
here inside the inner wall okay so what
you want to do is you want to lubricate
the brass while giving it the brass a
very good air uh seal so that the air
that goes in from the mouthpiece will
not leak out the side of the thing so
you want to make sure that the seal is
good to do that I personally like to use
silicone grease you can go to Amazon and
buy one of these top of silicone grease
yeah this is uh what I use for my air
gun so basically dab of Grease right
here okay a little bit will do the
silicone uh is water resistant so
basically you Loop the thing to make it
slide in better and also make it resist
uh moisture which is very good now for
this side I use up the grease on my
finger okay that's it so basically
that's all you need to do to lubricate
the joints it prevents the uh thing from
getting stiff or stuck woo it prevents
from getting stiff or stuck and also um
make the thing sealed up the air better
for the inside okay sometimes you may
want to wash the whole thing by um what
you want to do is pull this apart and
then just give it a bath you know take
your uh shower shower head and or like
just put it under the sink and rinse
water right in there and all the way and
rinse water all the all the way and then
put it back and let it dry by
air okay what it does is just wash the
inside nothing more nothing fancy
sometimes you will want to oil the thing
in the winter or in the um like August
or September when the air is very very
dry in some
places so because the air is so dry you
don't want the thing to dry up and start
cracking so personally I would suggest
you use min mineral oil you can go to
Amazon or your drug store to buy some
mineral oil okay get a piece of tissue
or paper towel not tissue paper towel
okay what I want to do
is unscrew the parts like this we'll use
the piece of uh paper
towel like
that and then
soak oops soak two dabs of or three dabs
of
mineral
oil okay just like cleaning the barrel
of a gun we put this patch right here
and find something to help you poke it
through
okay so uh maybe I'll take out my gun
cleaning Rod there you
go see
okay so basically what you do is you oil
the inside and that's it do the same for
the other section so basically you just
oil the inside with that kind of oil
that's it for the winter um when the air
is super dry I suggest you to play the
flute a little bit more because when you
play okay the
moisture from from you and and the heat
from you also prevent this thing from
drying for very badly okay okay there we
go uh okay first we need to see if the
mouth piece is align and also for the
mouth piece right here okay it is a good
idea to always clean this piece by using
uh rubbing alcohol and rub to kill the
bacteria from your mouth once a
while okay so for Tech G like that same
thing un
thecrew Loop The Joint wash the inside
put it back and air dry very simple
everything is the same okay for these
things okay redwood redwood they need a
little bit more conditioning on the uh
surface the oldfashioned way of taking
care of these uh Redwood stuff is to use
um Chinese they use Chinese tea so um
like Wong tea Wong cha okay they um Brew
some tea and wash it wash the whole
thing and start buffing it with the
tea okay and another method is also to
just use water and stuff to wash it and
then lubricate the whole thing with um
stuff like linseed oil or some kind of
oil like that and it will also um give
your wood a nicer finish but that kind
of mineral oil that we just used also
works on these things it's very mild and
it's very easy okay now these things are
one section okay and you cannot really
um pull them apart so some of these you
may want to make a a
tool that you can stuff inside all the
way and then pull it back so you have
like a kind of swap like that which can
go inside and out all the way so you can
make that yourself by using a uh wooden
stick or something and then wrap it with
a towel and you can basically go in and
out and that's how you can clean the
inside so basically the maintenance for
these things is is very easy it's all
about cleaning reiling and looping the
joints and besid that there's not much
you can't do about it if there are
cracks um basically what you want to do
is uh seal the crack so it doesn't leak
air and that that's all so the
maintenance and stuff for these things
is very very very straightforward there
not nothing mystical or special or
whatever about it so just play more and
also for B high-end bamboo like these
one okay you can see this is darker and
then some place is uh lighter color when
I first got this thing it doesn't look
like that like the whole thing looks
very much like this
as I play it more the thing age and
these darker color shows up and it looks
so nice so um good bamboo also change
color and they age as you uh use them
more and they look better and better so
play more and your instrument will get
better okay so thank you for watching
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