[EDIT: HELP!]My new old flute

Irish Flute
1

(see the third post for my 911 call, hence the EDIT)

OK, so it’s a fife. And while we’re at it: Why do they call it “winning” when you are the highest bidder on eBay. You still have to pay for it. :really:

Anyway, to the meat of my post:
I just “won” and received in the mail, a Cloos Crosby model Fife, probably Civil war era (??), and it played awesome right out of the box! This baby is sweet in the high range like no other fife I’ve played (not that I’ve played that many), and I can hit the high C and D which I’ve never been able to do before.

However - I noticed that after I played it for a while, after it got pretty warm and moist, that it lost focus and volume. My suspicion is that it is just old and dried out, and the condensation in the bore raised the grain of the wood, creating a “rougher” inner surface for the air to interact with. Sound like a possibility?

That said, I started thinking about what Jon C had done with an old, unplayable flute he acquired (in this thread), in which he “reamed” this ugly German flute and coaxed it into Rudall-ness. Can this be done safely with an old fife like this? Or does my new treasure simply need a couple of good oilings, playings and tough-love swabbings?

For reference, here’s a pic:

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I would say oil it and see what happens.

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Help!!

Within days of playing and enjoying my new Cloos fife (3 to be precise), it has begun to crack!

I just noticed it has developed cracks, beginning at the embouchure, and extending 1 - 2 inches, along the grain, with others also running along the ‘top’, parallel to it, up to the first tone hole! The crack at the embouchure does appear to go right through to the bore. :frowning:

I’m still within the 7 day return period for this fife, but I don’t want to return it – I want to play it.

This is major 911 here. Should I wrap it tightly right away to stall further splitting, until I can find a repairman? Or just I just cut my losses and try returning it? I’ve got a very reputable guy close by, but I don’t know if it’s even possible with this many splits happening so suddenly.

Please help!

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Poor bunkie!

It sounds like it went from a state of long-undisturbed dryness to major damp (condensation from your breath), and now it’s expanding and contracting like crazy. For the old ones I tend to observe an even gentler playing-in period than new ones; dry ones I oil straight out of the box and let sit for a while before even attempting a five-minute toot because I figure they need the waterproofing more than most.

At this point, it might be worth writing a note to someone like Terry McGee or Skip Healy, but my guess would be that you should try to cut your losses by putting it into a 60% RH environment and letting it settle for a few days, even a week or two. Then just play it for a few minutes a day, if at all, in the same room you store it in so as to avoid sudden temperature shocks. Definitely swab it after you play it, but go gently; a small piece of silk cloth is probably good.

As far as the cracks go, the damage is done but you want to avoid further cracking. Once the fife has stabilized, then you can look into having the cracks repaired – which is why you may not want to oil it (and thus not play it too much) just yet because the oil makes it harder for the repairer to get the glue to adhere properly. When you take it to the repairer, keep it in its 60% situation as much as possible, and try to avoid sudden temperature changes (i.e., blowing warm air into it in a cold room without letting it warm to the room’s temperature). Going forward, you’ll want to try to keep it in fairly consistent conditions as well, and if you want to play it in your corps you should probably keep it in your jacket pocket whenever the temp drops below, say, 70. And in humid conditions you’ll want to swab it well. (And of course, you’ll want to oil it quite regularly for a while until it builds up a decent internal raincoat)

After reading about the miracles people work these days I think it can probably be repaired. And, if it was me I wouldn’t feel I could return it to the seller since the cracks happened while it was in my care – but if your repairer’s good you can hopefully get it playing as well as when you got it with a little time and patience.

:frowning::-(:frowning: I’m sorry for your luck. That sucks. But it’s fixable; just try to keep it from cracking any more.

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Thanks, Cathy.
What really sucks is I’m so new to this wooden flute thing, even though I’ve had my Healy fife for 4 years now, that I just expected it to be fine, and the only other stick I have is a Healy D flute - which is about the size, shape and constitution of a nightstick! I just expected that this fife would be fine.
You live and learn I guess. I’ve also been accustomed to bringing flutes with me everywhere, which included into and out of my air-conditioned office, into my car, where I play it most often, and back into my house, heated with forced hot-air (very dry). I have no case for this fife, and I’ve never worried about humidifying my other flutes.

Please, all, keep the advice coming. I want to save this beauty. It played too nice to just let it die.

-Chris

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I know, Chris, and believe me, I share your pain. They don’t call the new ones “improved” for nothing!

I remember when my beloved little flute cracked after being taken on an airplane from Kentucky to snowy NYC and then from a warm dry hotel room to a cold cab and then straight into a session. I was in a dark pub, put the flute to my mouth, and … nothing. A little more effort produced a furry, soft tone, and that was when I realized IT had happened.

:astonished: … I still curl up and die inside when I think of it!

Anyway, on the plus side, after I told my teacher about it, he told me that cracks happen (although his initial “WHAT???” was pretty depressing … he’s usually sort of non-reactive – but this was a pretty much flawless flute, a really, really good one), and apparently they happen to lots of people sooner or later. He then told me about a flute he had that was slowly splitting up the side of the head until finally, when he was on tour in Australia, (I think it was) Mike Grinter actually drilled a tiny hole at the end of the crack to keep it from going any farther.

And then there’s his flute with the barrel wrapped in black electrical tape …

On the further plus side, I’ve since repaired my flute, the repair is invisible without a very good magnifier, and it plays the same as it did before, at least as far as I can tell.

Better still, now that I know both it and I have survived a crack, I breathe much easier. Not to say I’m not going to do my darnedest to try to avoid cracks in the future*, but I have to admit it was sort of a relief to get it over with!

So send a note to one of the experts, and meanwhile, start saving your pennies. :smiley:

*(you should have seen me Saturday, shoving the same flute up my coat sleeve every time we broke between tunes, even – we were outside, it was about 38 degrees, and I was a wreck – but not as much of a wreck as I would have been a year ago!)

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Almost one year after I had my Healy fife I noticed a hairline crack on my Healy fife (non-critical, near the tennon.) On advice from my baroque teacher, I sent it in for repair (still under warrantee and Mr. Healy quickly fixed it.) Almost everyone that I have spoke to said that they had a whistle flute or other wooden instrument crack. Most said that often there seems to be little rhyme or reason. (although I would not dismiss Cathy Wilde’s statements) The Healy fife had sat next to my Sweet folk fife for that time and was played and oiled just as much as my sweet for that time. I had owned my Sweet for years before the Healy. The Sweet had been in my trunk of my car while traveling from Washing DC, to Arizona, to GA, and then to Minnesota where it survived, without cracks for three Minnesota winters before I started oiling it when I purchased my Healy.


High C and Highest D? Wow! Is that thing a narrow bore Fife with no low octave? As to the age of it I thought that the patent for the tapered ferrules was post Civil war (but yes probably Civil war era).

Some one in the MN First has one that looks identical in the key of C. He can make that thing sing.

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Yeah, I couldn’t believe that was me playing, either. The tune that did it for me was “Turkey in the Straw” - the B section does this:

fa2f a2a2|fa2f a4|gb2g b2b2|gb2g b4|d’2d’2 a2a2|f2f2 e2de|f2a2 afde|fdec d4|

And yes, it’s a pretty narrow bore beast.
And yes, the low end suffers for it, but it is still remarkably in tune - just quiet on the low notes.
Also, some post-purchase research told me that this fife was post-Civil War, given that a) Cloos probably did not make too many fifes during the war, but during the fife & drum craze that followed, into the early 20th century, and b) the technology to create the tapered ferrules did not exist until 1869 - after the war (the preceding info from Ken Barlow’s site fifedrum.org)

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Hi Chris!!

Skip is out of town right now, but will be back on November 12th for a few weeks. Stop by with the fife and see what he can do!

Sue

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Thanks, Sue. I did drop him an email last night anyway, as I’m in a bit of a panic. I don’t want the fife to get any worse, so I’m doing my best to keep it stable. Wish me luck.
-Chris