Have any of you the experts ever rescued an antique flute? I am curious to know how much the original sound can be restored by , eg, repairing cracks, repadding, corking. Is “good as new / better than some new ones” a possibility for something that was a good 'un in its heyday? or is successful rejuvenation a rarity?
I often see wood flutes languishing in antique shops here in the UK and wonder if there is any hope for the poor old things in the hands of a good restorer. Not that I want new makers losing business!
Julia, it’s a great feeling, playing a flute that is 150 years old, but buying an old flute is a gamble, and repair is pricey, not all flute are worth the work.
I have flutes that were repaired to the point that I’m sure they look and play as good as they ever had, but then, there is the issue of tuning as well.
Good luck, let us know what you find.
eilam.
Nah, old flutes aren’t worth it! Nasty old things, really.
Some of us, though, do like certain kinds as wall hangings and such!
So if you find any with Rudall/Rose or Boosey/Pratten stamped on them, I’d be happy to buy them from you. That will help complete the set of table lamps I’ve been making and it’s best to have a matched set!
So, David, is that avatar of yours from one of your table lamps? And doesn’t Matt Molloy play one of your table lamps too? I do like a multi tasking household appliance.
I have a couple of old flutes that I love. One is a no-name, probably 100-year-old English flute that had horrible intonation. I sent it off to be revoiced, and it’s wonderful now. Intonation still isn’t perfect, but that’s what lips are for. I like its sound best of all my flutes.
The other is a Mollenhauer, probably also about 100 years old. I tried to re-cork and -pad it myself, and discovered that I don’t have much of a future in flute restoration. It has wonderful sound, too, but it’s waiting for a professional to restore it.
Even after restoration, neither of these cost more than $300. I know I lucked out; I bought another, better-known flute off ebay which turned out to be bogus and which I returned. But these two are treasures.
I have three old flutes (and a box of noname junkers/pakis) in playing condition:
R&R #1477 (bought as a lamp at D. Micgoya’s yard sale) which is great for pretending to be Cris Norman. This flute has two barrels and will play down to 415 in a pinch. (I think it’s 415 David…I havn’t tried that in a while now…have to check that tonight)
A mid-century D’Almaine w/ very large holes (broken keys, tape) This is one hot geezer flute !
A nice Hy POTTER band flute that I keep saying I’m going to make a new head for. (real easy player)
I just had some luck on EBay and picked up cheap what I thought was a noname (for the ivory head) and found it to be a J.PFAFF PHILA…I’m (slowly) restoring this one…serious problem with the head to barrel slide. Interesting unlined ivory head.
Matt Molloy plays a Patrick Olwell. As does his son and how ever many of his students can score one. Olwells make notoriously poor table lamps.
For stickball they’re unsurpassed.
My Avatar is actually the remnant of a lamp. As a headpiece it’s too heavy, but terrific in beating of drunks in the middle of barroom brawls! Quite a few forehead tatoos show “Rudall & Rose” in reverse!
I’ve found Olwells make better cue sticks than stickball bats. Great English.
Well “cue sticks” are pool cues or billiard cues, stickball sticks for sandlot baseball or cricket (sort of)
“English” in this case is the ability to spin the pool (billiard) ball when hit.
In practice, even the worst old flute could be restored…but how to tell if it “sounds” the same as when it was originally made is a different story altogether…and can only be approximated to “a certain degree”
As you’re seeing from responses – if you’re looking for a gem of a flute you’d have to be very lucky.
But if you like the idea of rescuing old instruments, and also learning a thing or two about restoration, I think it can be fun. Of course it can be expensive and frustrating to completely repair an instrument only to find out that even in its glory day it was terrible
Be critical about which ones you pick for restoration – you might get lucky. Its probably a bad move as a for-profit venture, but if its just for fun, go for it!
And of course, don’t spend all your time restoring things – remember to practice!
as well as his modern flutes) Be assured that no dusty corner of an antique shop in southern England will now be able to hide an old flute from me. I’ve had some luck doing up old banjos before and even did turn a profit in that case, but I know much more about them.
So far I’ve found several I didn’t dare buy and one I did, a Joseph Wallis cocus D with 8 keys which is surprisingly healthy but for a crack in the short section below the head and one dodgy pad, whose crack I will ask Mr Dodd to fix. It came in a boxed set with a nice fife and Andrew kindly identified it for me. It sounds nice even with the crack taped up so I am hoping it will be very useable when repaired. I am following Jack’s thread about his Pfaff with much interest! Very brave… as for not practicing, I can’t put the darn flute down these days…very habit forming instrument.
I came into an 8 key Firth and Hall flute and though it seems to be in decent shape, it needs at least a little work. Some of the keys stick and do not quite seat completely, and it is very difficult to play, so I suspect some small air leaks here and there. Besides all of that, the finger reach is a bit much for my hands, so I don’t know how long I will keep it.
My question is about repair/restoration. Are there things I should do before sending it off for an expert’s touch? And would an instrument of this type be worth paying a couple hundred dollars for service? Finally, if anyone would like to share with me what they think such an instrument might be worth after proper service, it would certainly help me determine how to best proceed.
I think I am making it abundantly clear that I’m somewhat clueless about all of this, and I appreciate your patience with this newbie. I don’t know much, but I enjoy learning.
Rule #1 of restoration is the same as the Hippocratic Oath: First, Do No Harm. In serious art restoration, the corollary is do nothing irreversible but that may not be an issue when restoring a functional object like flutes. If allowing a bit of CyA (cyanoacrylate) to wick into a crack will make a stickball bat into a playable flute then I don’t think that the inability to wick it back out should make a difference.
Getting back to the original query, are there any resources, sites, books, etc. that will have drawings of tools and techniques for safely dismantling mechanisms, metal linings and so on? I don’t suppose that there is a living to be made turning a busted junk flute into a well-functioning junk flute but it could be fun.
Here in Lexington, KY all of the music shops have either pianos and school band instruments and guitars, or they have school band instruments and guitars. Of course, there are a few shops catering to an underserved niche that just sell guitars. It might be nice to put inexpensive entry level instruments into circulation. I’m thinking it could give kids a chance to handle an instrument that inspires respect in itself as an instrument as well as an historical artifact. Or maybe I should just cut back a little on my medication…
I suppose now the question becomes where do I find a good repairman–I suspect a few might be hanging around these streets, no? Driving distance from southern Indiana would be nice, but hardly a requirement.
When I made mention of things I might do before sending it off, I was thinking of things like brushing out the holes under the keys, maybe some sort of lubricant that is commonly applied to the pins and keys, or to the inside of the bore. Is there anything used to clean or make pliant the pads? They appear to be a dense cork.
I did manage to get a full range of notes out of the thing, but it seems to take very gentle blowing to get the lower octave, making the flute very quiet. What would make it so quiet, other than lack of practiced technique? My german no-name doesn’t exhibit this condition.
FWIW, we can blame Grey Larsen for this recent infliction of flute acquisition syndrome. He showed me several flutes, just enough to make me interested in learning more about them.
