This is quite a nice metal piccolo cleaning rod, with a good quality, smooth and shiny finish. It doesn’t seem ugly or cheaply made. The “loop” end, where you push through your cleaning cloth, is not too small or too difficult to “thread,” and the other end of the rod has the encircling engraving for measuring cork placement accurately placed. If its “loop” were larger, the fabric would be more likely to slip out, although it would be marginally easier to “thread.” Just like with real needles and thread. I like how this metal rod is slender, as opposed to some wooden ones which are so thick that it’s hard to push the rod and cloth through the piccolo bore. If you have the cloth around the rod, as is easy to do, there’s little chance of scratching the inside piccolo bore with this metal rod..To sum up: this is a nice quality, inexpensive piccolo cleaning rod, even better than I expected, and I recommend it! I like it better than my wooden one.