Folks,
I just acquired a Hawkes & Sons Excelsior 8key flute in Ebonite, conoidal.
Quite a player after I had the upper tenon (which had been broken away) replaced. 440 and in D. Good solid tuning, plays down to C.
I’m pretty amazed, frankly, at how well ebonite plays.
Aside from the “greening” of the oxidation, it’s a pretty wonderful, powerful flute. Hell, even the square, all-leather hard case with neat clips is cool!
Anyone else out there with ebonite flutes (no, not delrin) and what you think of them?? Could these be overlooked gems? Rockstro seemed to love ebonite.
David, I played some old Boehms made of ebonite, I really like it as a material, kind of old and quality feeling to them.
don’t they explode every now and then ???
Is “conoidal” a real word?
If it isn’t I think it ought to be!
It’s a shame that materials such as ebonite are mostly used for of the cheep end of things.
I think many people make the association between synthetic and cheep/basic because of experiances with plastic recorders and school clarinets.
I haven’t played an ebonite flute but I did pick up an ebonite tube for my O’Riordan concert whistle set. I guess Pat made a few of these back in the 80s. I wish they were still available. It’s now my favorite. Got to play it in the Grand Canyon last October and it was magic.
I’d say it’s strong and reedy…
but seems the maker makes the difference rather than the wood.
I’ve not played a blackwood Hawkes of the same model, so…
the flute is the same as the one on Terry’s website here: http://www.mcgee-flutes.com/OrigPrices.htm
(look at the bottom of the page…the catalogue shot is the flute I have)…excelsior with sterling keys
No, ebonite won’t explode - that was a confusion going around a few years back with enough vigour it will no doubt resurface for the rest of time. Someone in a museum confused celluloid (or one of its close relations) and ebonite and wrote an alarmist article about it. Ebonite seems very stable apart from the oxidation issue. The stuff they were confusing it with was inclined to break down to nitrocellulose - I think we used to call it gun-cotton - a naturally unstable compound. There were a few flute heads made with celluloid heads - whether that particular formulation poses a danger I don’t know. Celluloid and related compounds are probably more dangerous in film form than solid stock.
On the green tinge issue, good old Brasso will normally remove it leaving a gleaming black. The oxide will return but not for a very long time.
And on the comparison between Delrin and Ebonite - yes there are many parallels. Both are a bit of a pain to finish (being rubbery). Ebonite smells real bad though during working.
Hi David
I had a flute exactly like yours some years ago(about 4 years ago) and it was a great playing flute, i sold it to a person in washington who really liked it,
i believe she took it to Pat Olwell to get some springs adjusted etc, i remember it had a very powerful tone. i believe they are great flutes and one does’nt have to worry about cracks.
john.
The only bad thing about ebonite is that if somebody named Hawkes makes a beautiful, loud, powerful flute out of it, and if a hundred or so years later it turns up in Washington, DC where somebody leaves it on top of his car so that it falls off when he drives away, rather than cracking in a few places, it shatters into bits. How do I know this? Funny you should ask.
I measured an ebonite Hawkes and Son “F” flute and recently made a keyless blackwood protoype to the same measurements. Their playing was similiar but not identical. The original is balanced toward the low notes, and my copy a little more to the midrange, but the differences were well within what could be explained by embouchure cut.
Also I’ll be picking up a Hawkes “Excelsior” blackwood in key of D on an upcoming visit to England, so maybe sometime we will get a chance do a side-by-side comparison with your ebonite one.
Terry, is ebonite brittle? I have one of those cheap made in India Ed flutes, supposedly it’s made of ebonite ( it does have a rubbery smell to it), but must be different in quality then the old stuff, I don’t think this will turn green (I like the greenish), the flute fell and the tenon snapped right of, I glued it with crazy glued and never had any problem, but Delrin would have not snapped like that.
Again, thanks for clarifying about the myth about the combusting ebonite, I know there was some story, so I had to throw it out there and wait “net-fishing”
yes, Terry…thanks for the info! The catalogue entry on your website was perfect match of my flute. Neat.
The smell is maybe from the sulphur addition to the vulcanized rubber?
and Ro3b…OUCH.
But I didn’t think ebonite was THAT brittle!
Glinjak, I’m not surprised you had one. All good things seem to pass through or into your hands at one time or another! By the way, I have some terrific new tunes from you to learn!
The undercutting on this embouchure is very shallow. I wonder why.
Yes, ebonite is definitely brittle. It probably becomes more brittle with age, like other early plastics. This is often due to the volatilisation of plasticisers.
I had to replace a broken tenon on an ebonite bassoon. It was too munched to glue, I had to cut it off, backbore, set in a new piece and turn a new tenon on it (which is what you can do on a flute with a broken tenon). You need a reasonable length of lathe to do that on a bassoon.
And yes, the smell is probably a mix of sulphur and rubber, neither of which are attractive, and together are puke.
