imagine you get a flute in very poor condition. It is made from fruitwood, has a brass slide, a brass-lined head and is totally dessicated since it wasn’t played for months. Furthermore, the barrel is cracked and the second 8ves’ highest notes are out of tune; the first 8ve is very weak and the lowest notes don’t speak very good, if at all.
It is a wide-bore, large-holed flute.
What would you do to get this flute to a good working condition?
Thanks & ATB,
Gabriel
PS: Sending it to a flutemaker isn’t an option, no funds raisable for that.
PPS: I don’t need how-to’s for the different procedures (should be enough available with the search function), just ideas what you would do. Just in case one misunderstands.
Start by humidifying it. Put it in a closed container with a damp
sponge. Then close the crack (search here on ‘cracks’).
Then see how it plays. That’s a start, anyhow.
Depends on the value of the flute. Fruitwood and brass slides, I would guess this is a budget flute to say the least. Do you know who made it? If not, don’t spend any money at all fixing it.
I would probably glue it back together myself, clean it up, oil it up, grease the tenons and see if it can play at all.
Unless it comes from a good flute maker, in that case I’d mail him and ask him what he thinks and how much he’d charge if I should send it to him to get it into workable condition.
Actually, it’s my selfmade plumwood flute I mentioned in some topics here. Just wanted to keep the thread more or less un-influenced at the beginning.
For now, I closed the crack with superglue and heavily oiled inner and outer surfaces of the flute. The tenons have to be re-threaded since they’re very loose. I’ll apply a bit of grease to the slide and clean the brass parts tomorrow. The stopper also seems to need to be replaced since it’s loose, too. I’ll report back tomorrow.
someone here mentioned jubilee clips for a cracked head joint .
these can be had from your local hardware store , or even a motor factors (where you get your stuff for the car , windscreen wipers , i bin a bayer window stickers , engine oil etc )
these clips , if God had known about them , would have been handy when he was trying to fix the san andreas fault .
you say it’s the barrel that’s cracked ? then you don’t have too much to lose with using the clips , and you will look very trendy…
how about showing it to another player ? doesn’t Christian Tietje live in that area ? he would be a help . i don’t have any contact details for him , sorry .
I glued the crack together (with superglue), reworked the tenon’s thread and gave the flute a huge portion of almond oil. It plays quite nice now, has nice wooden sound and should be quite suitable for a session…the embouchure is a bit difficult, it needs a tight, well-focused airstream. But when I hit the (very narrow) sweet spot, it sounds really nice. Alltogether not an easy, but a nice player…again.
The intonation needs to be reworked a bit, low D is sharp and G a bit flat, Cnat sounds a bit weak with OXXOOO, OXXXOX is better but still windy.
I also might need a lathe to polish the wood and the mounts again.
I’ll post a sound sample later today, when I get my microphone working.
Just wanted to keep the thread more or less un-influenced at the beginning.