I haven’t been around here in a while but long story short, I live in a climate that is notoriously nasty for wooden flutes (very cold, dry winter, radiator heat). Tonight I discovered that the barrel in my keyed Eamonn Cotter has developed a crack… and just when I was trying to gently break it back in with 10 minutes here and there. The crack is in the head joint (it’s a lined head joint, metal slider) in the piece that connects the head to the body.
Any short term things I should absolutely be doing for it to keep it from getting worse? I do keep it in a fairly airtight case and swab it out fully after playing it. I know the wood is fairly dry at the moment which is why I’d been starting a gentle break in scheme.
And then the followup question:
Does anyone have current contact info for Eamonn Cotter? When I purchased we worked by phone and snail mail but I can’t seem to lay hand on this phone number. Any chance he works in the land of email these days?
My suggestion, as someone who spends a large portion of my working day repairing these sorts of things, would be this: Try to keep the humidity as stable as possible - keep the flute in a humidified container (at around 65% relative humidity), don’t play it until you have the crack repaired, and definately DO NOT try to fill the crack with wax, cork grease or anything else, because that will make a proper repair much more difficult.
Do not swab your flute out completely. Pull a silk rag moistened with almond (or vegetable) oil through your flute before you put the flute away. You don’t want large drops of water – puddles of distillate – inside your flute. But small droplets of water won’t hurt a well-oiled flute. The moisture sealed inside the case might help to prevent cracking in the winter.
Your best bet is to keep the flute in a small drawer along with a hygrometer (Radioshack- @ $20). Then put a rag in a small cup of water. The rag will wick the water into the atmosphere inside the drawer, and hydrate your flute. Little effort and expense for a large return.