Hello everyone.
I had a major emergency last night. I play a one piece plastic dixon flute. Last night when I started playing it the piece of cork in the headpiece came loose an wandered down to cover up the “blowing hole”. I tilted the flute an shook the cork down again and started playing. I managed to play half a reel and then the cork wandered back again. Has anyone experienced this? Does anyone have any advice on how to remedy this? I’m in absolute despair, this is the only flute I have.
No worries
Cork shrinkage is not uncommon. Especially not in our parts when winter is starting to roll in, the air gets very dry and cork shrinks very easily.
There are multiple remedies for this. I have soaked corks in water, or oil sometimes to get them to swell. Don’t overdo it though, if you let it swell too much you might have problems getting it to fit again.
Lycka till
I should think it’s easy to fix. Poke the cork out and either wrap a piece of dental floss around it, maybe just one or two turns, then push the cork back in to the position where it plays in tune with itself in both octaves. As your flute is plastic and somewhat pliable I doubt this will damage the flute in any way or cause it to crack. Maybe your cork has dried out as Henke mentioned, then it’s just to moisten the cork then push it back in. Let us know how you get on if you still have a problem
The waxed variety works best I would think, but not the mint flavoured.
Careful, some dental floss might be slightly abrassive. I use teflon tape. It’s very thin and you can be precise with the correct amount of stuff applied so as to make the cork easy to move on purpose but hard to move accidentaly.
Rgds
Put the cork in a glass of very hot (nearly boiling) water…let it sit an hour, and it should be rehydrated and good to go. Or, drink a bottle of wine and use the new cork!
Eric
It’s been too long…but seems I remember swelling cork over heat (flame or other burner). Anyone ever tried that? BTW, the flame trick (match or cig lighter) will also tighten loose natural hairs on a violin bow. Hold it away far enough so the flame doesn’t burn the hair…and keep it moving.
I would definitely not do the flame thing. You’ll only dry it out worse. I’d suggest that teflon plumbers’ tape is best, and dental floss will suffice also.
Actually, I remember doing that with my Boehm flute’s cork, and I’m sure I wouldn’t have done so unless the info came from a legitimate source, like my flute teacher … But now I’m inclined to think I’d try the hot-water remedy first, and then maybe a few swipes with a beeswax block or the Teflon tape before resorting to open flame. The way I’ve been playing lately, that might be too tempting!
Loren would tell you nix on the flame for tenon corks, at least in the case of wooden instuments. Not that you’d set your pet ablaze, but it’s bad for the wood.
Oh, but it makes such a lovely smell. 
I’ve done the flame thing many times. It’s always worked. It takes much less heat to swell the cork than it does to burn the wood. It’s not for the faint of heart or the trembling of hand.
For a cork in the HJ what’s the big deal? You can easily get another cork if you ruin the one in there. You’ll just have to drink another bottle of wine.
Now I have fixed the problem. I used the tape-version. It worked great. It took a while to get the right amount of tape on the cork but it was easy to tune in the flute.
Thanks everyone for your tips and advice, I’m glad I found my way to this forum.
Another question, does anyone know how to get in touch with Michael Cronolly (M&E flutes)? I’ve sent him some questions by email but he doesn’t seem to read his email to often.
If you ring him on +353-71-9181336 after about 6.00-6.30 GMT you will have no problem getting him. Just bought a flute off him last weekend for my brother. Before buying my Murray flute i had one of Michael’s flute. Would definatly reccommend it.