I just picked up an M&E Rudall in ebonite, a type of hard rubber. When I lock in with it, it plays great; I’m quite impressed with it. I think I’m also getting a taste of how a Rudall-style flute plays and feels; very unique compared to other flutes I’ve tried.
One thing that I think contributes to my inconsistency with the flute is the difficulty I have in fully sealing the tone holes. The holes have very sharp edges which seems to make it more difficult for me to cover them consistently. I’d like to finely file the holes down, but I worry it will ruin the flute tone and may even make it harder instead of easier to seal the holes.
What are other folk’s experience with this and how would one go about “softening” the outer edges of the holes, e.g. the tools to use, techniques.
I would use a dowel with sandpaper and file down every hole very carefully. Steel wool could be used for finishing and to make everything smooth. However I don’t have a clue what sandpaper and steel wool will do with ebonite. I use that method for wood.
Pay attention not to enlarge or undercut the holes, as even subtle changes will affect intonation and playability.
Buy moisturiser and apply liberally to your hands at intervals
Make sure your hands are warm before playing
Finger drills can help with the process…rehearsing good hole-closure over and over…
… sealing tone holes gets easier when you have had an instrument for a while…muscle memory or whatever you want to call it, will mean you slowly start to place the fingers in the correct position rather than off-centre, which may be a reason for what you are experiencing.
I know it has happened to me
I’d have thought sharp tone-hole edges would actually favour getting a good seal against flesh and indeed also facilitate feeling that you have placed your fingers correctly and cleanly on the holes… They certainly would not cause leaks or misplaced fingers. The only sound reasons I can think of for rounding them would be if they are so sharp/rough (i.e. not properly finished off by the maker) as to be uncomfortable - and even that would be unlikely unless you are suffering from death grip! - or that they catch the flesh and hamper you from doing portamento slides on or off the holes if that is an important aspect of your playing style. I think boyd is right in suggesting the main problem is that it is an unfamiliar instrument with different spacing from what you are used to and that your hands will learn their correct placing and motion with (probably not too much) time and practice.
However, if you absolutely must round them, use a scrap of fairly fine wet & dry abrasive paper, fold it into a cone, place your finger-tip in the cone and press it gently vertically into the tone-hole and twist it to-&-fro a few times, rotate the tube a bit around the axis through the hole you are working on and repeat (to get an even finish around the hole - your finger tip is not symmetrical!); be careful not to press too hard or let extraneous parts of the abrasive touch the tube outside the tone-hole as any circular scratching you put on the surface will be difficult to remove! You could wrap your cone of abrasive paper around a (fat) pencil tip or a sharpened dowel, I suppose or some other handy cone shaped solid: you want a fairly wide cone, c 45 degree slope, as you want to hit the corner between hole and tube surface, not enlarge the bore of the hole, nor yet too much affect the tube surface. Very moderate rounding of the tone-hole edges at the outer surface will not affect or upset tuning or tone, but it really shouldn’t be necessary and I doubt would help at all.
Jem’s suggestions and precautions are good, although I would go about the task a little differently. I have never worked with ebonite, but I suspect that it may be really tough to alter the sharp outer edge of the finger holes with sandpaper. I think that I would try to use a fine half-round needle file for the task, if you have one. With a file you can easily contol the angle of the bevel. You could finish the hole with OO steel wool. While it probably is true that finger holes with sharp outer edges may be easier to cover, I find that some rounding of the fingerhole edges are preferable, sacrificing some expediancy for comfort.
You can do this job with a file, as Doug says, but in my experience that is rather fiddlier and it is harder to get an even effect around the hole than by “cone sanding” as I suggested, which does it all in one with a consistent effect and quite speedily. Do not risk abrading the tube surface finish even with wet & dry - I don’t actually know how the shiny ebonite surface is produced, but suspect it is a heat finish which you won’t be able to replicate or restore if you do abrade it. You might be able to remove abrasions by successive rubbing down with very fine grade wet & dry used wet (much as Doug achieves the finish on his PVC flutes) but that isn’t guaranteed and would be a lot of work over a much bigger area of the tube… don’t go there! Whatever you do, don’t use wire wool or sandpaper!
Good suggestions from everyone. Just to add to Jem’s point. You may want to cover the body of the the flute with tape before you start using sandpaper on the edges of the holes. Painter’s tape works fine and does’t leave much residue.
I frequently use needle files for this task (newly built flutes) as Doug suggests.
Still more to my liking is to use fine abrasive stones made for a Dremel. They come in a wide variety of cone and ball shapes to fit various size tone holes and they are quite inexpensive at discount tool suppliers. Don’t mount them in the Dremel though, Dremel bad! Just clamp them in a pin vise and spin them easily around the egde of each hole. If you don’t have a pin vise, you can just spin them by hand. You’re just easing the edge after all.
Jason - so you have an 8 key ebonite M&E, too? Or, is Michael doing his keyless in ebonite as well? I love ebonite…it’s my new favorite material. I can’t believe I’m saying that material makes much difference…so maybe Michael has just changed his design a bit…then again, did I say I love ebonite?
My impression/hope is that ebonite sounds better than delrin (all other things being equal).
The one ebonite flute I’ve played sounded very good. It’s nice to know people
can still get hold of the stuff to work with.
OK being serious - I like the feel of the holes being not too sharp especially when sliding into/out of a note, not sure that it helps or hinders sealing of the hole - I would suspect it would hinder it if anything.
I ease the edges of my whistles by:
putting the instrument down on a surface that holds it still (something with a groove in it)
and then with a tube of a similar radius to the instrument covered with some fine wet and dry sandpaper say 320 or 400 I sand across the holes - that is put the sanding tube at right angles to instrument sitting in the hole (make a cross) and then lightly sanding - a picture would help but my wife is away and she has the camera.
a few swipes is usually enough for a plastic or wood whistle - never dealt with ebonite.