I have a Hawkes and son. Both 1st and 2nd octave D are about 15 to 20 cents sharp.
I’ve checked for key and other leakage and all seems fine.
The pads on the low C keys protrude approximately 1mm form the their cups. The keys hold them fairly high from their seats in the wood. Approx 5mm from home,the wood seating.Bohem style C foot keys.
Is it possible I need to fit shims to the back of the pads? Or is it shims on the arms that rest on the flute body.The ones that detremine how high the pad sits when the key is open. This would seem to allow easier tuning than pad shims.
At present there is an alignment problem on closing Cnat also. A different issue I think. The C# seals but the C# does not fully seat with the Cnat closed. So Cnat is not playable.
I wonder if it is a flute made for high pitch? Hawkes & Son were a major supplier of band flutes, so they were into high pitch for their Eb, Bb and F flutes.
What’s the C# to D# length? (centre of hole 1 to centre of Eb key cup)
You could try playing it with the foot joint slightly pulled out at the tenon (assuming it won’t just fall off!).
246mm. Looking at your web page this comes just under the shortest of the modern pitch ranges.
My regular flute I’ve been playing is a late Boosey 8 key with a shorter hole spread (scale length) but very well in tune with old fingering. I was expecting this would be also? I’ve checked foot joint and main body for leaks. Used a ballon on the end of each joint and moved it between some boxes on a table acting as a calaper. No deflation. (for foot joint I had to press C# , C keys closed with my fingers due to not having them alighned yet)
No cracks etc detected.
Kevin
Moving the foot joint down by 8mm puts it in tune for me. I get the impression the other notes are more balanced as well. I see no evedence of hacking or moding. I can’t see why anyone would have wanted to either. Of course at 8mm extrension I’m in danger of my foot dropping off especially when tapping the other foot.
I’m taking it c/c# gap setting is not used to tune the D. It seemed odd that it would be. The ‘stops’ that determine how far the key opens have a very thin shim of cork on the part that touches the flute. I think I remember seeing these quite thick on Bohems.
Interesting. That would make the C#-D# length 246 + 8 = 254, which is back in Rudall Rose territory. Did you grow up trying to push a Rudall into tune?
If the answer is no (and i’m just covering bases here), it does seem to suggest that the bore or hole sizes or both are conspiring to sharpen the foot and/or flatten the left hand notes, at least in comparison to the Prattens, which has about the same scale length.
I’m taking it c/c# gap setting is not used to tune the D. It seemed odd that it would be. The ‘stops’ that determine how far the key opens have a very thin shim of cork on the part that touches the flute. I think I remember seeing these quite thick on Bohems.
Kevin
The cork pieces on the key feet are used to set the key opening (as well as acting as silencers on the return). And key opening does affect tuning. You wouldn’t want to set the key height so low that it weakens the response though. But try slipping some scraps of cardboard under the feet and see if you can find a position that flattens the d’s enough without making them fluffy.
If you haven’t done it already, I’d call in the RTTA process before you go any further, just to make sure the results you are getting on the tuner are real life results. You’ll find Flutini very easy to load and use, and probably more than enough for your purposes.
Yes I thought the same re the extra 8mm putting the length into the wrong range.
I’m using the Syaku8 tuner. Calibration run. It works fine with other flutes. I have played Pratten and Ruddall style flutes, I’ve been playing my Late Boosey pratten for a good few years. No problem on either system.With the rest of the flute set up as normal I have to roll and modify a good bit to get D in pitch.
I wonder if I could be missing something. I’ve checked the head joint for leaks as well.
Any Hawkes owners might be able to chip in.
All the joints serial numbers and stamps match up but there are no stamps on the foot. Normal?
Maybe some more dimensions might help. Joint lengths:
Head joint 162mm
Barrel 68mm
body 274mm
foot 133mm
foot bore at end 12.2mm. I can’t measure the socket end bore at present. I would be able to at work if needed.
I lapped the joints slightly loser than I like to allow some minimal expansion when played in. I’ve put some PTFE tape on them just to check for leaking but no difference.
I havn’t loaded RTTA yet. I can hear the D is slightly out just playing it alone. Might try it in unison. Will load RTTA later.
The rise of keys is certainly a tuning factor. Although not expert about Boehm flutes, I know it is a critical factor, the more so with the very large tone-holes and proportionately large platter keys. When repadding them one is always advised not to mess with bending keys or their travel-limiting arms for precisely that reason. A 5mm clearance on the open standing foot keys for low C# and C does sound rather much to me - I’d think more like 3mm max at the outer edge would be more like it - and increasing the thickness of the buffer cork on the stopper arms would be the first way to explore adjustment. Of course, limit the rise too much and you’ll get flat/muffled notes from the relevant tone-holes. I seem to recall Boehm and Rockstro both had things to say about the effect of droopy pads and the importance of rise settings to intonation…
One way of helping to determine whether the whole foot of this flute is sharp would, of course, be to see how in tune is bottom all-keys closed C (with the flute assembled normally)? Of course, you need to get that sealing properly first! Get someone or use a rubber band to hold it shut if you can do that without forcing the mechanism; otherwise, make the necessary adjustments! If the C is in tune with the main scale, your problem is with the mechanism - which obviously has a problem which needs fixing anyway if the keys don’t both shut cleanly. Also check to see how in tune the Eb is - does it match the main body scale or the presently sharp D and C#? The Eb could also be affected by excessive key rise when opened, of course. If it’s just the C# and D which are awry, the problem is one of adjustment: if the Eb key rise is not excessive and that note and the low C are out of tune/match the current state of the D and C#, then you need to suspect that a “foreign” and shorter foot has replaced the original, especially if reducing the rise of the open-standing keys doesn’t cure the problem.
I’d say get the whole foot joint system closing accurately in all relevant combinations first, then check the tuning of the fundamental C to determine whether the foot joint is sharp overall, then, if that isn’t the case, look at the key rises and adjustment to sort out the C# and D.
I’m resurrecting this post to report good news. After originally posting I had to put the Hawkes away as I didn’t have time to persist with investigating it. More recently I had a chance to give it a try again. I really don’t understand but the tuning is now ok. Must be either me not being able to blow it right or the flute has moved with re-hydration. Me? I have played a good few flutes but I just could not get the D down to pitch whatever I tried, blowing wise. Even blowing very soft and turning in I was struggling. Maybe I was ‘pushing’ it in some way that didn’t suit but I would think that can maybe only partly explain it and there was something wrong with the flute. I understand the previous owner told me she is a clarinet player and did play it rarely for fun, but I think it was pretty dry. I think it’s still only partly re-hydrated now. It was not leaking so could this have been down to re-hydration?
Re-hydration seems unlikely. Tuning can be a hard thing to pin down alright - moves about with daily variations in your embouchure.
One thing that used to happen to me when I started using a sofware tuner was that the pitch setting would sometimes seem to reset itself to some other pitch than A 440 Hz…436 say or 443 maybe and if I didn’t notice, I would get an unexpected tuning result. Now I always check that setting before testing but it doesn’t seem to happen any more!
I am slightly suspicious of the tuner at times but don’t often use it. The calibration could be slightly hit or miss on my pc sometimes. This is not the problem with the tuning the flute had. I was able to hear the D being sharp before I even checked it with the tuner. I’d also say my embouchure is pretty stable after all those years.
The whole response of the flute seems to have changed, tone wise etc. This could be partly me adapting to it but that’s not the main reason. I find the difference hard to believe.