What are people charging to repair flutes? I’m curious about the different costs of repadding, cleaning, fixing cracks, reboring headjoints, repairing keys, etc.
I should mention as well, I’m not really in need of a repairman myself - I’ve a friend who does grand work already, and is wondering what people are earning.
Some of you must have had flutes repaired!
I was looking on Skip Healy’s site. He does repair work at $100 an hour. I’m assuming that’s labor only and that materials costs are in addition to that.
That’s the only quoted price I’ve seen.
Pelham
I spent 60 bucks a few months ago having a guy stabalize the head of my hammy and fix a crack. Don’t know if that was a huge price to pay but the problem was solved so it was worth it to me.
I had an old German 8 key flute restored for $5,723,659. I did it myself 
and the deadbeat hasn’t paid me yet so I am keeping the flute. Yike, I am starting to sound like Nanohedron… somebody help me!
Having a second hand keyless Grinter in our household which had problems, we contacted Mike Grinter to find out if he could have a look at it. Colin was sure the problem was around the embouchoure hole as the body played fine with another Grinter head from JMV. Mike insisted for some reason that he would have to measure the bore of the flute which he said will take two hours. When asking how much the hourly charges would be he said $ 350,-- per hour. 
So, he was wanting 700 Dollars before actually doing any repair work to the flute which would have been additional. He also mentioned that if Colin had bought it from him direct, it would be warranty and therefore free of charge. Needless to say Colin looked at it himself and sorted it out in about 10 minutes. Mike also said that he is not keen on repair work which is why he charges so much.
From this we learned that it is always helpful before buying a second hand instrument from a living maker to find out what the repair charges could be. Also you will find some makers will not be willing to repair or make good other makers shoddy workmanship.
Hope this helps
Brigitte
I wonder why Mike just doesn’t say “No. Except for warranty I don’t do repairs.” Why play games with the $350/hr sillyness?
Clark
A modern maker who would say “I am not doing repairs unless it is warranty” possibly risks losing lots of sales. At the hourly rate he wanted for “second hand repair” from us which would have been warranty if bought direct, Colin could have bought himself a new flute from another maker with no doubt better service policy. At that time he lost any possible future business altogether from us. Since then we have seen and heard more about his work which was enlightening and not encouraging. There seem to be very good service for the famous or potential famous players though, so make sure you are or will be one of them. We have not heard these type of things about any other living flute maker.
Brigitte