Hi. I have been building Irish-style pennywhistles from PVC for some time now with a moderate to good amount of success. I have decided to try making a few Irish-style flutes from PVC. I made a prototype last night which went fairly well, but my tone holes were sort of out of proportion. I wanted to try my luck again tonight. I just wanted to ask for the advice of any flute makers in the group first. I have read on some sites that I should drill the embouchure hole strait in and others seem to indicate that I should drill it in at an angle. This seems to pose a problem because all of the information I have seen indicates that I should keep the hole as perfectly round as possible. If I drill in at an angle I produce an ellipse instead of a perfect circle. Also, some sites recommend that I undercut the embouchure hole with a dremel or knife, and others say leave it alone. I was just wondering if there might be any consensus among the flute makers here on this forum. Any advice or pointers would be much appreciated. Thanks.
Not a flute maker, but if you did that wouldn’t the ellipse be in the wrong direction for even an elliptical embouchure?
There is no consensus on how to do this. I would drill the embouchure hole straight in. Then you can shape the embouchure with half round needle files, coarse, fine, and extra fine. The circular hole is your drilled shape, but you can make an oval or a rounded rectangle if you so desire. I would undercut the blowing edge so that you are blowing against a sharp edge. There is no one way of doing this. You will need to experiment.