Hi All, I bought a nice old flute in all respects except for a nasty crack in the head joint through the embouchure. I have humidified the flute and it has closed the crack about halfway. Still a millimeter or so to go. Unplayable as-is.
Was this fixed? Do you know who made the repair? Maybe the owner could speak to long term stability. (BTW a beautiful instrument).
It would seem like pulling the sleeve and sanding the wood is the best fix, but wouldn’t the wood still move with moist/dry cycles. Is the theory that it gets fixed and hydrated and stays that way forever? Can this be fixed to reliably withstand moist/dry cycles?
Thanks, a lot of questions, I know.
Lewis
Hi Lewis. No fix is 100% guaranteed forever, but I have had good success with the method you describe. I have several (public) photo albums of flute restorations on Facebook showing how it is done.
Hi Lewis,
Almost all the damage of a flute could be restored to a good/perfect state.
I guess Jon will answer your question (as he is both the restorer & the owner of that RR flute) ;- )
btw, I’m quite curious now, who is the maker of the flute you found? (what stamped on it?)
The flute is 8 silver keys and a nice warm brown wood, does not have the reddish hints in cocus. Can’t play it yet, looks like a nice medium Rudall design. It is marked as follows:
That is cocus. No doubt. Nice looking flute. Are the keys sterling or German Silver? Impossible to tell from the photos. Have any of them got any letter stamps on the under sides? Manby on his own is not mentioned in my out-of-date Langwill.
That head crack doesn’t look too nasty in the scale of such things. Re: “wet/dry cycles”, bear in mind the head wood is not much exposed to such compared to the unlined bore of the body. It is primarily long slow age shrinkage/drying over the metal liner which causes such cracks, not swell/shrink cycles from wetting and drying. Of course the wood continues to respond to ambient conditions, but far less drastically than if it were being soaked inside! A good glue repair with the liner out, minor bore enlargement to readmit the liner unstressfully and a good modern glue to fix the wood all round to the metal so that that holds it in place to support the crack-line gluing, plus tight refitting of the ferrules and all should be well (without need to pin) provided you don’t thereafter severely dessicate/overheat the poor thing!
I saw that flute and said, that does look familiar!
Like Jem said, not a very bad crack.
Unfortunately, I am without a lathe at the moment! This must be what it is like to quit smoking… Hopefully it is just a temporary set back, as I have a huge pile of Cocus I could be turning…
I have found, a lot of time the crack follows the raised ridges put into the liner, to keep it from turning, they raise the ridges with a knife blade score, and a lot of times it is right through the embouchure! The shrinking wood is split in two, by the micro log splitter!
