Wow, there’s so much good material in this thread for me to go off on…I’m actually overwhelmed and can’t figure out where to start! 
Guess I’ll just touch on a couple of things before I get overstimulated…
Az,
What, you’ve missed all MY “Tell it like it is” whistle reviews? How come Jessie get’s all the glory, I’m hurt man!
Sam,
You’re right we ARE all nuts.
Peter,
Are we really talking about the same sort of flutes here? 1 day to build from scratch a 5 or 6 piece top quality wooden flute? (Foot, RH, LH, and barrell sections plus headjoint and end cap for a R&R style flute) I really don’t think so. Perhaps you have in mind a 2 or 3 piece roughly made instrument? Let’s consider what’s involved in making the type of flute I’m referring to, a 6 piece R&R style as mentioned above:
First off you have to measure and cut the wood into multiple pieces.
Next bore, then ream, each piece individually.
Now you have to mount 1 or more of these on the lathe; Let’s say for sake of argument that the maker has a lathe with enough distance between centers that he/she can mount all the wood (except the end cap), using spacers. This would save some time, if you could do it that way, but I seriously doubt many (if any) do. Chances are you’ll have to do at least two separate turnings, with time for unmounting and mounting in between.
So on goes the lathe and you start roughing down the pieces. Next comes the shaping and bringing to spec., rather time consuming work if you want to produce a really top quality consistent instrument. Don’t forget you’ll have to cut those pesky sockets and tenons at some point as well, about 8 or so. Let’s hope we don’t hit a weak spot in the wood and break a piece as we’re doing the lathe work…damn those hidden defects in the wood!
Okay, so now it’s on to the lathe finish work: Gotta go through at least 3 grades of sandpaper, then burnish with your shavings. Next a couple of coats of wax, or whatever you’re using. Buff between each coat, then apply your final polishing product and buff one final time.
Don’t forget to turn your endcap, (with tenon), then sand, wax, buff, etc.
Let’s see what time is it…Yikes! Better get moving…
We still need to glue up and install the two sections of tuning slide, and don’t forget to cork or thread lap all the tenons and check for a good seal.
Okay, off to drill some holes! Eight to be exact, plus the embouchure. A really savy maker might have 3 or 4 jigs made up to save time with all the hole drilling, if not, better get to measuring, clamping, drilling, unclamping, and repeating…one at a time on the drill press. Whew!
Okay, finished with that right? Nope still need to undercut and chamfer at least six of those holes and insert the tuning cork, then fine tune the embouchure hole and overall tuning.
Ooops, I almost forgot to mount the metal joint bands, that won’t do - don’t want any cracks at the sockets, do we?
One final inspection, then spend another hour billing, packing, shipping the flute, and notifying the new owner of it’s impending arrival.
Now I’m sure I’ve missed a bit or two in there Peter, and a fellow might want to have lunch at some point during the day I’d imagine. All in all, seems like a good bit more than one day’s worth of work, especially if you have to deal with ANY sort of interruptions…but then that NEVER happens, does it?
Really Peter, I conceed that it may be possible to do all this work in the course of a day, if it were some sort of race conducted under ideal conditions. However, I find it hard to believe that any maker can knock out the kind of top quality, 5-6 piece keyless flutes that I’m thinking of, at anywhere near that speed on an ongoing basis.
So, were you talking about the same sort of flutes?
Loren
