So, I bought an e-bay flute for fun, 8-key no-name cocus wood (I think). I knew there was a crack in the headjoint but it was away from the embouchure and it’s a fully lined head, so I thought I would just fill it with superglue.
However, it turns out that when the crack happened, the liner must have started showing at the far side of the embouchure hole because the liner was very jaggedly filed away on that side. I pulled the liner and used a needle file to do a better but probably not great job of smoothing it out. I also took off all the keys, plugged the holes with poster tack, and used plumbers tape on the tenons and headjoint cork to try to eliminate leaks. When I try to play it, though, I can’t get a respectable low D. When I shift the liner so it’s a few mm away from the hole on the far side, I get a better but not still not strong low D. The first octave g seems okay and the second octave is a breeze.
My question is, can the liner hole affect the low D that much or is probably some other issue or combination of issues? To complicate matters, I’ve only been playing for several months so it’s hard to sort out what’s just me on a different flute. My main flute is a Copley delrin with the squared embouchure and, while my tone isn’t always great, I can blow a loud low D on that flute.
I don’t have much of a budget for my ebay flute (that’s going into upgrading my delrin) and I was hoping to be able to see what I could do by myself although I’d prefer not to do anything irreversible because I like the flute. I could try to better smooth/fit the hole in the liner, I could enlarge the hole in the liner so it’s well away from the embouchure hole (irreversible but partially there already), or I could ship it off to a professional for an evaluation. Any thoughts?
Have no fear, Matt; I’m here to offer my completely inexpert opinion that probably doesn’t answer your question!
It sounds like the flute might just have a naturally weak D. Do you have any idea about it’s origin? If it’s one of the anonymous germans, mine also has a pretty wimpy low D. An unhealthy interest in uniform hole size matched with poorly done vents in the foot seems to be a common problem with them.
I’ve also got a Copley, and there’s just no comparison between something created by a modern maker and most of the antique flutes out there, especially not once the old girl is held together by tape and tack (not that I’m judging. I’ve got one just like it at home). I’d suggest calling the weak D an interesting “quirk” of an old flute and not worrying about it too much.
Perform a suction test on each of the pieces. Air may be slipping around the liner or tuning cork. Then start assembling the flute piece by piece and keep checking the suction (seal the tone-holes with fingers and the far end of the flute with cellophane or a balloon..) …till you find your leak or leaks.
Just to check, ya didn’t blue-tac the C & C# hole on the foot did ya?
Thanks for the quick replies! As best I can tell with a suction test, I don’t have any significant leaks. And I did leave the c and c# holes open. I suppose it may never have had a strong low D – that’s the hard part here: I’d probably be willing to save up my pennies for a professional repair if I knew that the end result would be a solid player but it’s not clear that would be true, especially given the changes to the liner. The flute has a nice feel to it but I’m not experienced enough to say whether it was well built.
And definitely night-and-day with my Copley, absolutely no question. Dave is very graciously adding an e-flat key to it currently, which will at least partially assuage my key issues (I supplement ITM with some baroque and other music). My long-term plan is to save up to fully key my Copley but I was hoping to get my ebay flute at least sort of up and running in the meantime.
I for one would like to hear if the cork needs to be replaced/adjusted. I would also wonder if the head joint needs replacing. And, the fully lined headjoint discussion that is surely lurking somewhere.
I think I understand (forgive me and please clarify if I’ve got it wrong) from what you wrote that you have not glued the head liner back in? If not, it will leak from the embouchure hole around the liner and that will be quite enough to destroy the low end response. I take it you are suck-testing the head (metal liner tube inside wooden one) with the stopper cork in place by closing the embouchure with a finger and sucking on the slide end of the tube? If the liner tube is properly glued back in and the edges of the hole in it are clear of the inner lip of the embouchure hole in the wood on all sides, it should not significantly affect the tone production. You may not have found it yet, but I’ll bet on a leak. If you haven’t glued the liner tube back in, you can’t test it properly and it will leak.
(And dare I say it, why oh why don’t folk read properly? I barely skim-read this thread in a moderately alcoholised state and spotted the key statements in the OP’s posts… Right, that’s an egg-on-face invitation!)
The above said, I do quite understand the temptation to not glue the liner back in when you don’t want to do anything which might be hard to reverse and you know there are issues around the emb-hole cut… but you cannot do a realistic play test thus. You could perhaps try carefully painting a little superglue at the junctions of the walls of the emb-hole in the wood with the metal liner to try to get a pro tem seal (breakable by a twist of the tubes) there - but that will be rather tricky if they’re cut back…
The small loss of depth of the emb-hole walls by the liner tube’s thickness no longer forming part of them is likely only to have a very minor significance/effect on tone production. I would not worry about it. As long as they are tidy and even and not sharp-edged, they shouldn’t do any harm slightly withdrawn from the chimney of the embouchure. Unfortunately I can’t think of any reliable and simple way to temporarily seal the liner tube back into the repaired wooden head tube in order to test play it without permanently regluing the liner. FWIW, I have on at least one head repair found that my initial gluing back in of the liner with Gorilla Glue has not perfectly sealed things and I have had to run superglue around the wood/metal interfaces at the crown end, the bottom of the embouchure chimney and the tuning slide in order to seal all up properly. but usually the Gorilla Glue does it
I do not know what is usual or traditional in gluing liners but I would have guessed/thought that it would be done in a potentially reversible manner i.e. using a glue softened by heat. Anybody know?
Traditionally shellace was used, and still works. I mostly use epoxy, gorilla glue will also work, but may expand into the areas that you don’t want glue! All three are reversible, as they all break down when heat is applied. NEVER use silicone, as it will not break down! ( I had an antique that a flute maker “fixed it” with silicone, and it was not fun).
@ Jon C:
Thanks for the reply.
Didn’t know that heat would ‘release’ Gorilla glue - I’ve never got along with Gorilla glue for various reasons.
Do mind sharing what kind of epoxy you use?
I have used LV superglue, ‘bondloc’ on a similar metal liner repair- running it round all the junctions evrywhere- and the spring-post feet too, as a couple had a leak; seems to work. Any issues left are to do with weakened springs not giving a good key seal.
On an Eb end key, where the tone-hole rim was so bad it wasn’t fileable/build-uppable, I glued on a false rim of some square-section silver solder (needed the height, too). Perfect seal. Got alignment wrong first time, and found that the ‘glue buster’ de-bonder works fine to separate one item from another, then excess can be filed/sanded off. It seems to work with epoxy, too, though I’d reckon not after it’s fully cured (about a week)
Got it from a woodworking site online.
just to give Jon a plug; he fixed an ivory hj for me with a nasty crack through the embouchure and it’s been perfect–and really did improve the tone and bottom end of the flute. i couldn’t believe the difference it made.
there was a guy who was selling a flute with a crack in it; i watched his youtube video and the bottom end was terrible.
Jem, if I understand correctly, you’re suggesting that I enlarge the hole in the liner so it’s larger than the embouchure hole by a few mm (2? 5?).
I guess I’m surprised that having the liner hole be larger than the embouchure wouldn’t affect the sound more. If the bottom edge of the embouchure is important, then it seems like having an extra bump a little ways down from the edge would also be important.
There does appear to be some air loss around the liner or from the headjoint cork, so I suppose I may have multiple issues.
I’d think that Jem would prefer the liner hole not interfere with the wood part of the chimney.
It is the blowing edge of the embouchure hole that is most important.
It might be that symmetry is the lesser of the evils.
You’ve lost a wee bit of chimney height (the thickness of the liner).
While this is not ideal it shouldn’t be enough to make much, if even noticeable, a difference.
No! I meant that, if you have already done so, which seemed to be what you were saying (tidying up ragged hole), then that should not be an utter disaster. I would not advise doing it deliberately/otherwise.
It’s the depth of the hole which is most likely to affect tone production, followed by it having the optimum shape/undercut (whatever those might be!) and rounded inner edges. Whilst a small step in the inner tube surface set back a little from the hole is clearly not ideal, I suspect that provided it is not too close to the main hole, it would be likely to be in a fairly dead area in terms of the air turbulence of flute-tone-generation and therefore unlikely to have significant effects beyond the loss of chimney depth. I don’t know that, but it seems logical to me (I could be utterly wrong). You described a situation where, bar soldering in a patch of metal in the liner tube and cutting a new hole in it (or getting a complete new liner tube), you are stuck with what you have - and if that means a tidied up emb-hole in the liner which is larger than the main one in the wood, all you can do is optimise things, and I suspect you would get a pretty acceptable result.
Quite. Sort that first. You can’t test the tone production, let alone fairly assess the embouchure’s performance while that is so. I’d advise tidying up that hole in the metal and then perhaps gluing the liner in with kids’ art & craft water-based PVA (gloopy enough to seal things up and not leak while you test it), letting it dry a little but not completely, leak-testing it and, if OK, tone testing. Then pull it back out before it sets fully and proceed according to what you found. (Caveat: I have not tried this - it is just an idea - don’t blame me if it goes awry! - but provided you don’t let the glue set fully, I can’t see why there should be a problem… just wash the glue residues away thoroughly afterwards.)
If you have enlarged the hole in the liner, especially on the blowing target side, I’d suggest you make sure the cut in the metal is well bevelled (funnel opening inwards!) so that there is not so much of a “step” in the bore as a ramp.
Jem, thanks – I think I understand a little better. It’s still possible that the liner could be made to closely match the hole on the target side (far side from the player), maybe my problem there was more to do with leaking or my quick attempt at reshaping the hole.
I’d be tempted to try a new liner, although I don’t know how feasible that is, or where to get them.
OK.
There is this other possibility to explore, if you can hard solder (silver solder/braze) and are happy to drill and file a new hole in the metal… see this photo album of one of my recent restorations where I had to deal with a horrible emb-hole! Also read the info posted on the album and the individual photos. If you do try this, beware that the original soldered seam in the rolled-and-soldered tube may be done with a relatively soft solder and you could end up melting that where you don’t want to! Best to test at the crown end first! I’d never done (or read about) this before - it was an experiment - one I got away with! (BTW, if you FB, welcome to link up there…)
