I apologise if this topic has been done to death before, but a search didn’t come up with anything. Does anyone know where I can buy stands for my wooden flutes for stage use? The commercial offerings that I have seen so far have spindles of too large a diameter for the wooden flutes that I have (by Sam Murray and Stephane Morvan). Maybe I have to buy those stands and have the spindles turned down to a smaller diameter.
I’ve used this one on stage many (many) times. Simple to make and cheap as well. All you need is: PVC pipe, dowels, rubber bands, and a drill. I added a smaller dowel to hold a whistle, but it works fine with just the main peg.
Pat
I wonder if it might be better, with a keyless flute especially, of you made a stand where the flute went into the tube, rather than a wooden rod into the flute? It seems like it would be less likely to do any damage to the inside of the flute.
Thinking of a large piece of PVC cut in half, with hole drilled for PVC pipe sections large enough and deep enough to insert a flute to say eight inches. The pipes the flute goes into could be stored in the hollow of the half-pipe. You could line them with felt.
I could spend way too much time on this
You’d need to make some sort of cross in the base to keep your assembly from tipping over. Also, I think the base pipe would be quite large - I like mine because it all comes apart and I use the rubber bands to hold it together for transport. BTW, I play an 8-key flute and the dowel works fine.
Pat
Pat - do you have a photo of the stand that you made?
It has been too many years to verify which one of these I bought… but it works great: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=oboe+stand+portable&ref=is_s
Eric
Ummm… It’s in my original message. Click on “this”…
Pat
I made myself something based along these lines:
Note that the cross arm rotates to fit within the longer arm for packing away.
@Terry: is the central post removable? That would make it really portable.
Pat
I use a bottles of wine box, painted black with a dowell on it. It works fine for me because I play string instruments too and I like to put my feet on it when I’m playing. I also use it to put cables and stuff in. You can add as much dowells as you need, but not ideal if you need to save space…
I made mine removable for that very reason, Pat. I glued some studding (threaded rod) into a hole drilled into the end of the pole. That passes through a clearance hole in both feet. The clearance hole in the lower foot is backbored, and a nut to suit the threaded rod glued into that.
So, to assemble, you put the upper foot onto the threaded rod, followed by the lower foot, and then turn the pole to tighten. To disassemble, just undo the pole.
I did toy with the idea of making the case into a foot, by glueing a nut inside the middle of the lid of the case. The pole could live in the case with the flute. But it seems such a shame to mess with it…
I’ve also been intending to make a pole that would snap onto the bottom of a microphone stand, just above the section where the feet join in. You could have several - one for the flute, and smaller ones for whistles, radiating around the stem of the stand.
Beside my recliner in the family room, I have a small two-drawer cabinet that holds books I go to often. The top is good for papers I’m currently working on. Screwed to the back I have a small peg that supports a whistle. If a tune pops into the head, I just reach for it…
If an image forms in your mind that I am totally self-indulgent, that’s OK too…
Here’s my Rube Goldberg solution, as a multi-instrumentalist, slowly working the flute into the repertoire I’ve been playing on mandolin, and need both instruments at gigs and sessions.
It’s a short microphone stand (you need a vertical shaft for this), with one “String Swing” clamp-on holder for the mandolin, and another “String Swing” to rest the flute so it doesn’t hit the stand. The lower end of the flute is held by a drummer’s clamp-on bag for holding drum sticks. It’s wide enough not to interfere with a keyed flute. I use a rubber band (not shown) to lock the flute against the “String Swing” yoke when I’m away from the stand, for security.
It’s not very compact, although the legs fold up, and if you’re used to carrying something like a mandolin or fiddle floor stand it’s not much different.
I think I’d still rig something like this with a cylindrical bag on a stand if I only played flute. I don’t like the idea of a rod sticking up through the nether regions of my flute as a holder… partly because I can think of some ways that might cause damage, but mainly because the Rudall-type flute I play has a very narrow bore at the end, and would need a really thin, probably metal rod.
I took a piece of 6mm plywood (lauan, pronounced “luan”) and cut it approximately 16" x 32". At one end, I glued a 1x1x16 block with pegs of various size. The plate slips under the front legs of my chair, extending to my right (so the rack extends front to back). The weight keeps the rack from falling over.
On break, I’ve seen fluteplayers leave their instrument resting on the music stand. Yeow!
Walt
I made this out of some dowels stuck in a piece of wood. The base is from a desk-top mic stand base. Very heavy and sturdy and can’t be knocked over even when the stand is full of whistles and flutes.
Clark