I use a lot of these for cleaning guns. You can buy the large 500 pack and catch them on sale pretty cheap. What uses have you found for them?
I use them cleaning out my tobacco pipes with the bowl area. Cleaning my ears, cleaning little garage projects, etc.
I don't care what they say, I use em to clean my ears. Other uses I can think of offhand are for applying stain and varnish to those hard to reach places on wood working projects.
If your batteries have "exploded" in a toy or TV remote control or other such battery operated device that the battery normally stays in for a very long period of time, you can use Q-tips with a water / baking soda mixture to remove the grime from the battery connections inside the unit. I also use Q-tips w/ peroxide to clean my fingers if I had a hangnail that got infected. Doctors use Q-tips (the really long one) on body parts that should never have a Q-tip near ... <shudder>
Funny you say that because I opened a small maglite today and out comes a massive amount of powdered battery corrosion.
For protecting the battery in a flashlight, you would be better to use "Spark Plug Glide" - or, by its official name, DieElectric Grease. It comes in small tubes (like toothpaste). Coat the seals of the flashlight with petrolium jelly. Coat both ends of the battery with DieElectric Grease Put back together and you only need to worry about dead batteries then .. One of the biggest killer of batteries is oxygen - the other is moisture. If you can keep both away from the connections, the batteries will last significantly longer.
In addition to all of the uses previously described, I have a few dipped in paraffin wax to to use tinder for fires. Of course dryer lint dipped in paraffin also makes a pretty decent tinder for use in wet conditions as well.
