For fluters in North America right now - protect your flutes! This big snow storm in the Midwest and the East and the resulting chill results in low indoor humidities - a worst case scenario for your wooden flutes. Be a good time to monitor the humidity in the container where you store your instrument and adjust as necessary.
I have some difficult conditions in my workshop right now. Am trying to finish an alto flute in A with 8 keys and the cold here has been hampering my progress. Was 39F in my workshop this morning. With all the lights on and a space heater on (one of those 300w oil fired radiators) I can get it up to the 60s on most days except if the wind is blowing. I prefer to tune and voice right at 70F though and I only get about an hour in the late afternoon. The building is poorly insulated and has other leaks besides. I really need to finish insulating it sometime this winter. Fortunately the lower temps mean the humidity stays above 35% when unheated - but I have to watch it when I heat it. The shop is also the well house, however, and the pressure tank “sweats” to some degree, acting as an automatic room humidifier.
Folks in currently rainy California - you can relax. The conditions are perfect. And you need the rain.
Here in the swamps of LA (lower Alabama) we have 40 degree temperture variances in one day from November to March: 70’sF by day and 30’sF at night. In the same day we’ll need both the air conditioner and the heater to be comfortable. Our humidity is high summer and winter (which makes both seasons really unpleasant regardless of temperature) but the indoor humidity is pretty stable. Anyone who moves here for the climate probably thinks Keats is a breakfast food. After twenty-five years here your skin takes on the appearance of a cotto salami and your flutes start to grow moss on their north side.
Oh, to be really cold again, like west Mayo or Buffalo in February:) You can always add another layer but at my age there’s only so much I’m willing to take off. Send this old Yankee home, please.
I have a cracked guitar in my basement, which I took with me on a holiday many summers ago. The weather was extremely hot and dry back then. What do you know? The guitar warped back into shape and played like a charm! Once at home, it cracked back again. My guess is that it was once made in a dry and hot part of China before being shipped to Holland.
As a result I feel that I should compare climates before buying a flute from anywhere overseas, despite of our weather always being humid.
Maybe cracking is the direct result of wood drying out, but warping more the result of changes in the environment. (Someone mentioned here before that he had a boxwood flute that would bend like a banana only when being played; I guess this is the same thing.)
Nevertheless, wishing everyone all the best in their own particular climate, for as long as that lasts. (According to Al Gore humidity will eventually rise up to the ankles here, anyway.)
Casey, it sounds like you need to move some of the flutes that you are fine-tuning into the more climate controlled environment of your home. I converted a bedroom into a work room in my current home. I no longer have to work in the freezing or overly hot basement of the apartment where I lived for years.
Yesterday it was about -40C with the windchill, and our winters are always ridiculously dry. I keep my flute in a plastic bag with a damp sponge from about October to March or April (except when I take it out to play!). Yaay Saskatchewan!
I had a workshop in a room in my house years ago when we first moved to Seattle. Was fine except for the dust and shavings that got spread throughout the house. Worst thing was swarf from metal turnings in the carpets and encountering these with bare feet. Since then I don’t mind the separate quarters and it keeps the house less dusty.
Most of the time I don’t mind it out there - but we have been breaking records. Hotter in the summer with 110F being recorded in Chehalis, halfway between here and Portland, and temps in the single digits currently. We’re in an El Nino pattern currently but these extremes are not typical El Nino. More like the climate is staring to go wonky on us - and this is one of the areas of the world they are predicting to stay pretty much the same, just wetter.
Am keeping weird hours due to the cold weather. Too cold to sleep at night even with the goldendoodle pup on the bed (perhaps I need a few more). Plus Nancy has been away for a few days assisting her brother and when she goes away, I rarely sleep. Why I am up typing away at 2AM.
And, for all you folks who go to sessions … it doesn’t hurt to let the instrument warm to something resembling room temperature before playing!!! When I arrive at a session or gig I open my cases first thing and let them hang out while I set up my other stuff. Seems to help a bit with the pipe reeds, too. Might even play the whistle on the first few tunes if need be and keep the flute on my lap.
Before I figured this out I managed to crack the head and barrel of the best flute I’ve ever played halfway thru the first set.
It’s always time to humidify. The only question is whether it’s time to let nature humidify for you, or take matters into your own hands and humidify yourself. And waiting until a ferrule falls off to realize that it’s time to take matters into your own hands is not the smartest way to do it. Hygrometers are cheap. Use them year-round to make your decisions for you, instead of using your presumably expensive flute as a hygrometer.
Almost agree with you here, Cathy – definitely let the flute(s) get used to the warmer, drier room before playing. But let them warm inside the case first, before opening - the change in temp and humidity is sudden once the case is opened. The case acts as a buffer; as it warms, so does the flute, a bit more slowly. Then, after a bit, open the case. This is only possible, of course, if you’re not running late…
Then I warm the flute with my hands and a bit of warm air blown in slowly - man, this could be read wrong! - before really settling into tunes.
I think of this time of year as delrin season, the wooden guys stay in the humidified storage box most of the time. Did I mention that I love my McGee delrin RR Perfected?
"Yesterday it was about -40C with the windchill, and our winters are always ridiculously dry. I keep my flute in a plastic bag with a damp sponge from about October to March or April (except when I take it out to play!). " Meaghan.
I do the same here during the winter months in Sweden - keep my flutes almond oiled, and inside their cases/roll, inside a plastic bag with a piece of damp sponge. Seems to work. Coming in from the cold to a session, I put the headjoint under my armpit to warm it up before playing, or assemble the flute, but play the pipes for the first half hour or so.
Flute cases are not for storing flutes. They’re for carrying flutes back and forth from home to the session in areas where the lack of a corner chipper or the rapidly accelerating death throes of the newspaper industry make it difficult to find greasy newsprint to wrap around your flute pieces so they don’t fall to the sidewalk and crack. Flutes need not be stored in their cases, especially if there’s a need to augment the humidity nature is providing around them. Find a Tupperware or other sealable container, or have a room somewhere in your house where you can ramp up the humidity somehow. If that container or room is big enough to hold your flute pieces, there’s not a hygrometer made that won’t fit in there as well. And unless your journey to the session is a three day trip via dogsled or the like, you can easily risk putting your flute in an unhumidified and unmonitored case for the journey.
Quite so. I try to keep two on the go for daily playing. I should probably just sell the others to be honest!
The small scrap of damp sponge in the case works well though for those that aren’t played this time of year. I found my Cotter is the most variable in shrinking/expanding at the change of season, so that the tenons can become a bit loose. It’s marginal but a danger sign. One or two days cloth wrapped in the case with a tiny bit of dampness in there revives the fit very nicely. Like orange peel in a dry tobacco pouch for those of a less healthy disposition
And, for all you folks who go to sessions … it doesn’t hurt to let the instrument warm to something resembling room temperature before playing!!! When I arrive at a session or gig I open my cases first thing and let them hang out while I set up my other stuff. Seems to help a bit with the pipe reeds, too. Might even play the whistle on the first few tunes if need be and keep the flute on my lap.
