Hi folks,
I’ve recently received a keyed Olwell “Pratten” in blackwood, made for me by Aaron Olwell. It is an amazing and beautiful flute indeed.
This is the first keyed flute I’ve spent any real time with and I’m wondering how to oil it properly in a way that doesn’t damage the keys, pads, etc. I’ve written to Aaron Olwell but not heard back from him yet (he’s busy making flutes). So, how do all of you oil and otherwise care for your keyed flutes? What should I do and what should I avoid?
If I’m feeling bold, I take all the keys off, drown the flute in an oil bath and let it dry for a few days. Meanwhile, I polish the keys. If I’m not feeling bold, I just put small pieces of plastic wrap under the key pads to prevent them from soaking with oil. Both methods work for me. But actually, I only oil my flute 3-4 times a year.
Following on Gabriel’s theme… I’ve been playing an unkeyed blackwood Olwell for 7 or 8 years now and it has travelled with me all over the world - Sri Lanka, Uganda, Rwanda, South Africa, Costa Rica, Mexico, Norway, Ireland, Sweden, etc, etc, etc… some pretty diverse environments. I oil it maybe 4 times a year and it has held up brilliantly - no problems, cracks, shrinking, warping, nothing… the only issue has been some cork degradation, but I think that’s because of using my own strange cork-greases or not using any at all. Anyways, it has definitely made think differently about oiling, though I do find the flute sounds particularly lovely after I’ve oiled it (and looks and smells great too).
I’m pretty much with Gabriel here - follow the maker’s recommended “playing in” regime for at least a year, then 3-4 times a year should do. I never actually immerse my flutes (or ones I’m fixing up) in oil baths, though. (There’s not enough bore oil in a bottle for starters, and at between £3-6 for an egg-cupful, a bath would be rather expensive to arrange as well as generally OTT and unneccessary!). About twice a year I strip off the keys (polish them while off) and oil fairly liberally inside and out and leave it to soak in for a couple of hours. I apply the oil either with a pull through I keep for the purpose or a cloth on a dowel, or more usually I run a few drops of oil into each section and then spread it about with a goose feather. The feather absorbs less oil than a cloth will and so is less wasteful. The feather is also good for doing inside the tone-holes and embouchure - it will be plenty oily enough after doing the bore. Externally you can just apply oil with a finger tip, though the feather or cloth are handy for nooks and crannies like where blocks merge into the body or through key-slots (if not metal lined). Make sure you wipe any excess off afterwards, though, and especially in key slots etc. or you’ll wonder why your keys are sticking. Use a dry cloth pull-through to remove any surface residue in the bore - especially if you are using a vegetable oil rather than a proprietary bore oil. Remember also to dry the tone-holes with a cotton bud or with cloth around a suitable probe - again, to prevent oiliness attracting and concreting gunk and reducing the tone-hole size.
In between such major oilings I occasionally oil internally only - usually with the feather method. With a music shop bore oil and a feather, you can make a light enough application in the bore that you may not need to wipe out afterwards, but you’ll probably always want to wipe off the outside of the flute! I don’t tend to bother protecting the pads and they don’t seem to get oil on them from the feather provided I haven’t put too much down the tube! I do think it is probably sensible to put slivers of cling-film or similar under them, though. If I get any oil on them I ust wipe it off with a dry cloth and they don’t seem to come to any harm, but one should not leave them oily. Likewise, if you have pewter plugs you should make sure any oil that gets on them is wiped off as it will gather dust and make them sticky and it is also best to make sure any other metalwork is wiped dry - oils can speed tarnishing of silver.
To oil, cut pieces of plastic grocery bag to slip under the pads to protect them, and remove the head cork to oil. Use cold-pressed linseed oil very sparingly, and very lightly coat the bore. Let sit a couple of hours and then run a cloth through it to remove the excess. Allow to finish drying overnight before playing.
After the flute is broken in, he recommends oiling once a month.
There was a schedule he had me follow, oil once a day for the first week, then once a week for the next month, then once a month from then on.
Okay, lots of good advice… but the heck am I supposed to avoid oiling the cork on the tenons? I’ve always oiled them, and it’s caused no problems besides having to have them replaced every 4 or 5 years. But really, how does one avoid oiling the cork, and why?
Chris, I don’t think you need to panic if a bit of oil gets on your tenon corks. After all, you (presumably) put grease on those corks, and really when it comes down to it grease and oil are basically the same substance in a different state - solid vs. liquid. Obviously not exactly the same substance, since they are in different states at the normal ambient temperatures at which they are used, but the organic forms of them anyway are just different kinds of fats. Sort of like the difference between butter and vegetable oil, both of which are pretty much 100% fat. The only thing to watch out for in terms of getting oil on the tenon corks would be to avoid getting so much on there that the joints become too loose and your flute won’t stay together. If the corks do absorb any oil, it won’t hurt them because it will keep them from drying out, which (along with compression which occurs over time no matter what) is the real culprit in cork deterioration.
This is different than what happens if oil gets on your keypads, because the pad materials are typically much more absorbent than cork is, and if they soak up enough oil they start behaving like cold oil-soaked French fries and become stiff and quit sealing. The only choice then is to replace the pads.
If you oil your flute at all, oil will eventually migrate through the thin walls of the tenons and get at the cork from the underside. It’s not such a big deal, unless your corks are put on with contact cement, which is a very common attachment method. Oil will cause any kind of rubber cement to disintegrate over time; what started out as super-sticky glue will wind up as a greasy, messy layer for your corks to slide around on, which eventually leads to tearing. An option is to have your corks put on with shellac, which is impervious to oil. Some of my older flutes have corks which were put on this way by a repairman with 19th-century sensibilities, and they’re still in good nick. On the other hand, when I was living in Doolin I lost a cork on my Olwell when the cement became slimy. In fairness, that flute had loads of miles on it at that point.
Banging loads of cork grease down onto your corks will keep oil from getting in; Patrick even told me to put some grease on my finger and rub it (steady, now) into the interior walls of the main tenon to stop oil from having an easy passage through. Give it a try. Cheers,
One more little tip, given to me by Dave Copley: if/when you remove the keys during oiling, keep each key and its pin together in their own little baggie. If there are keys that look similar, labeling the baggies could also be helpful. One can only imagine the cacophony, not to mention the fingering challenges, if the the Bb key were to be used for Eb and vice versa.
Yep, if you’re not oiling the outside of the flute, just leave the pins in the blocks. If you’re doing a complete strip down, put the pins through their own key as you strip them and put them on a secure flat surface. No need to faff with “baggies”! There’s rarely an issue over trying to put the wrong key in the wrong place as usually they are sufficiently different that they just don’t fit, even if they look similar when you pick 'em up. However, a sensible way around this if you are not confident of knowing them by their looks is to use a sheet of foam or a soft cloth and lay out the keys and pins on it in their relative positions and orientations. For my repair work I have an old baize-lined, compartmented cutlery box and I put each section of flute with its stripped-off components in a discrete compartment.
I am way too chicken to take my old flute keys off! Something to do sometime with an expert present, I think.
Or am I just being pessimistic?
I am way too far from anyone who could put it back right. Any of you seasoned flute care people who are coming this far north, let me know. I’ll trade food, futon and kayak for a lesson in key dismantling.
I don’t take the keys off of my Hamilton without a reason, because of the design of the springs they can be a little challenging to get back on. So for routine oiling I put pieces of plastic under them as a precaution and leave them on the flute. I use oil sparingly; the plastic never actually gets any on it, but it still makes me feel better.
My old 8-key, the keys are extremely easy to remove and replace, so I routinely remove them for oiling. No big deal.
Now I will say this: if you ever feel the need to take the key mechanism off of a silver flute, that’s when you may need someone with you the first couple of times. It’s a bit more complicated than the keys on a keyed Irish flute, but not too bad as modern instruments go. Piccolo is worse; oboe is much worse.
Jennie, the key system on a simple system flute really is Poki Yoki at it’s finest. You can’t put them back wrong, at least not on any flute I’ve seen or heard of. As long as you don’t loose any pins it’ll be alright. If it helps you feel better, you can always lay the keys on a piece of paper and write which key it is next to it.
Anyone can do it, even one who’s had waaay too much
whisky
