I have a denis wick silver cloth i used to clean my silver baritone with, can i use it on lacquered instruments? or will it cause damage?
Yes. And and the world will end in a big firey explosion if you do... [sorry its been a long day...] I guess that over time it wouldn't do the lacquer a lot of good, given that its not the most robust coating anyway. Now, I'm no expert, but I think a silver cloth is designed to polish the metal by removing a microscopic player of tarnish to get back to the shiny base metal. Laquer is effectively a thinish varnish over the brass (apologies for the rather **** wording and examples, as I say its been a long day) which needs to be rubbed clean rather than scrubbed. I guess if you spend the next decade constantly polishing your instrument (oo-er..) then you might start to see some dulling / rubbing off of the laquer. But, honestly if you really want to make a laquered instrument look nice and shiny then buy the right cloth for the job. They're hardly going to break the bank.
A silver polishing cloth is impregnated for polishing metal and is no good for lacquer putting minute scratching in over time. Use a duster, or some other soft cloth