An Irish Flute for $1.10!

Irish Flute
1

Please forgive the horn tooting and self congratulations, but as Martha would say I think I’ve made a “good thing”. Perhaps some forum members might be interested

Although I had been aware for some time of Pete Kosel’s fine web site http://www.cwo.com/~ph_kosel/ with his instructions for making a PVC flute, I only got around to making one a couple of days ago. The results were indeed surprising. I ended up with a very good flute that was beautifully in tune and, although probably slightly on the quiet side for session use, nonetheless is a joy to play.

I made it from 3/4" grey PVC electical conduit ($4.47 for a 10’ length at Home Depot - enough for 5 D flutes) following Pete’s instructions closely. He has an interactive program on his site called “Flutomat” which automatically calculates the length of the pipe and the hole diameters depending on the key you wish to make (Flutomat works for most keys) and the inside diameter of the pipe you are using. Always cautious, I cut the tubing slightly longer than specified and drilled the holes slightly smaller and then enlarged them by hand with a conical reamer. That way the flute could be made perfectly in tune according to my electronic tuner. A cork ($0.15) from a local hardware store completed the operation. The entire process took around an hour. In addition, it can easily be made tuneable.

I think one of these would be ideal for a beginner who doen’t want to spend a lot of money until he/she is sure they will carry on with the flute or as a take-anywhere instrument that is virtually indestructable. If you drop it in the lake or over the Grand Canyon, not to worry, just make another one. Or perhaps you need something to practice on while patiently waiting for that Olwell or Grinter to arrive.

I hope some of you will try your hand at making one of these and let me know the result.

Regards to all,

Dave McRitchie
Toronto, Canada

2

I have had a lot of fun with Peter Kosel’s info. I started on PVC, as suggested, but then I used the tone hole spreadsheet for making bamboo flutes, too. Great stuff.

3

You may be interested in the book, Simple Flutes which shows how to make simple flutes out of several materials including PVC and bamboo. The author, Mark Shepard, has other flute books out, primarily Boehm but with simple flutes too, and has a very informative website.

Cheers,
Aaron

4

I did the same thing Jessie did - started with PVC and CPVC and moved onto bamboo. I use Pete’s stuff as well as Mark Sheppards. It’s a lot of fun, and it is a good way to start on something cheaply (provided you have the drill and bits in the right size).

PVC is great since it gives good chimney depth and doesn’t split on you like bamboo does sometimes, but I still really like the sound of a bamboo flute.

Eric

5

You can use the Flutomat to calculate conical flutes too, just “average” the bore diameter before you plug it into the formula.

Conical Bamboo flutes can be made of short pieces glued together in decreasing diameter(PVC or Bamboo pieces). Here is a site for Bamboo flutes and the page for the “Nohkan” conical flute that uses “glued-up” bamboo.

Main site
http://www.asahi-net.or.jp/~DL1S-YMGC/index-e.htm
Nohkan page
http://www.asahi-net.or.jp/~DL1S-YMGC/nohkan-e.htm