Hi Folks,
A reminder - if you or someone you know wants to get a Folk Flute for the holidays, today is the deadline. The next batch after won’t be until Spring. April or even May.
I have a number of irons in the fire that I plan to work on this winter, thanks to some non-governmental “stimulus money” coming in.
I am retooling. My reamers are old and quite worn out. So in the next 3-4 months after the holiday rush I plan to make a bunch of new ones, as well as do an “Extreme Makeover” on my workshop. However, there will be no large TV crews like the monstrosity they built up the street from me in 2003. I will just be adding some wiring, insulation, sheet rock and lighting, and maybe a covered porch. And getting tools like a real soldering torch set up, finally installing a real dust collector to save my lungs, and setting up yet another semiautomatic outside turning lathe or maybe two - these help keep my waiting times down.
I will also be moving my website to a more reliable host provider. The current one has lousy spam filtering for my casey@caseyburnsflutes.com email address and daily I get several offers to accept large amounts of laundered money etc.
I will still be getting flutes out the door - but would like to get all of the flutes ordered this year and last done and off my queue.
A few new products that will be formally announced and available in the Spring:
An Eb key retrofit for the Folk Flutes for $200. These will use cast keys and my normal strap mounted posts. This key will be the only one available to my Folk Flutes. Given that all other notes are reachable by cross fingering and half holing, it makes sense to add this feature only to render the flutes fully chromatic.
Flute Kits. These are aimed at the wood turning market. The biggest impediment to making a one off flute is rendering a bore profile that works well. Thus I will provide a body ready for outside turning. You do the turning and decorate it as you see fit. Then you can try tuning and voicing, or send it to me for this service for an extra charge. I will be using a later Rudall Carte bore on these that is relatively forgiving, instead of my own proprietary bore profile. Along with the development of this item will finally be the production of a flute making video.
One Keyed Flute in F. Actually I have made some of these for the Galician market.
A bunch of other ideas are under review. I don’t want to expand too much - but concentrate on what I do well. I am pulling a few items from production, such as the extended foot joints for my low flutes, as well as the low flute Folk Flute versions. People prefer the ones with rings and slides instead. The extended foot joints allow you to play down to G on my low A flute - but these take way too long to produce for what I can get for them and I have other things I would rather be doing and making.
Happy upcoming Holidays to everyone!
Casey
Best of luck!