I have in my hand right now an Armstrong 104 flute. My dad boutght me this flute when I was 12 (now nineteen). I used this flute in Marching Band for three years and had the pads partially replaced three times and fully replaed once.
I made a mistake of spilling water on the end of the middle joint and destroyed four of the pads. So I took it apart to replace the few pads, then lost the tool to take the pads off. Three months later, replaced that tool and got back the work on the flute. I finally got it back together and almost fully operational.
The last key on the middle joint is not moving as freely as it should. The last time I had come upon this problem, I took it to the local music store and the gentleman who fixed it for me told me he dropped some lubrucant into the rod and had me move my keys continuously for 30 minutes or so afterwards. Yay it was fixed. But now I want to do it myself and was wondering if any of you knew how.
My sister is needing this flute as secondary flute for marching band. The weather is usually pretty crappy on Fridays and she doesn’t need to be using her perfectly good flute (minus the two dents in her headjoint)