Well the flute building adventure is coming to another big step. I’ve built about twenty five or so flutes of PVC, expirmenting all the while, tweaking the formula, and learning a heck of a lot from people on this board, and I ready to start selling.
This all started because wanted a flute and hadn’t the money for one (college student). After building a couple I thought “Hey, I’m a poor college student. I bet I could get really good at building these and make a little side income”. That’s right, all the proceeds from these flutes go to a good cause: feed the starving college student.
So I pacticed, and sent out test models, and tinkered in the wee hours of the morning, covered my mortal remains in PVC dust, and then I got into the thread box and started wrapping, and so on…
The results have been well worth the effort (funny how life usually works out that way). And so it is that I open my doors for buisness. Without further adieu allow me to present to you:
Spider Co. Folk Flutes
I know what your thinking. “The thread looks nice, but it’s just a gimic.”
So what?
Just kidding. It started out as a gimic, but I discoverd that it actually improved the tone of the flutes. I think this has to do with rigitity inside of the bore, others have differing opinions. All I know for certain is that a bit of wrapping close to the Embouchure it adds more focus and a little volume to the flute. The more decorative stuff is just a gimic, but a good looking one. All my flutes come with at least a simple colored band on them for the stability. More wrapping costs more, as it probably takes longer than anything else. I’ll try to accomodate requests.
Other options:
Ergonomic offsets, 7th hole for Eb, Large and small embouchure options (the large is more like average. The small has a more mellow, reedy, delicate tone. Nice for solo stuff, but not as versatile as the larger embouchure, I think).
Large and medium finger hole layouts. The large holes have a very big powerful sound, better tuning in the second octave and are very easy to half-hole and bend on even the trickiest notes. Very similar to a Bansuri in terms of playing. The small holes make ornaments a little more articulated. I prefer the large holes, but they are not for beginners or those with small hands. The small holes might be slightly better for ITM.
D and G are immediately avalible. Different Keys avalible on request, and different scales if you like (harmonic minor is a popular and interesting choice) for a slight charge. These are non-tunable, so if you plan on playing with a lot of pipers or concertian players using older instruments, you might want to pass on these. They are tuned to A=440, using tempered intonation. D flutes start at $27 and generally max out around $50 (the one pictured above would be around $40)
BUT (this is the big one). Production is probably going to stop for a month or so here when I go to school (on thursday), until I can find someones workshop that I can use. I have a limited stock right now. Being a new maker without a reputation I doubt what I have in stock will sell out, but custom flutes will not be avalible.
By the way, I’m going to Europe, so for orders within the next week shipping will be cheap for the states and not cheap for Europe, and it will be the opposite after that.
contact me via PM or at ninjaaron@hotmail.com if you are interested.
-edit-
New pictures
This is a “standard” model; small fingerholes, large emouchure ($32):
This is my one of my personal “not for sale” flutes (I put that in quotes, because everything has it’s price). It’s a large holed model:
