Its just Delrin. Not plastics in general. I don’t enjoy turning it.
I haven’t found other plastics as bad. I did make a few flutes out of the polyester resin by GPS Agencies called Alternative Ivory. I also have tried cast Acrylic. I’ve also toyed with the idea of making flutes out of ground glass - similar to the historic Claude Laurent flutes. Except that the glass would be tempered and would come in some interesting shades. Its possible to get cast glass in an obsidian-like color. There is a lens grinding shop not far from here and I am working with them on another secret project. We’ve been talking about this idea for a few years and it wouldn’t be that hard.
I used to use the GPS At. Ivory for rings on my flutes and bagpipes. It holds up well. I also used some antique and fossil ivory, as well as beef bone. These actually didn’t hold up as well frankly.
I recently tried Rob Gandara’s carbon fiber flutes as well as one of his carbon fiber Gaitas. I’ll refrain from commenting here on the flutes. The pipes were actually quite nice. Kevin Carr and I played a few tunes on them in front of his Folklife booth. It works okay for bagpipes. But Boxwood just has a more incredible depth of tone, resonance and presence. Kevin sent me home with a chanter by the Seivane brothers. I popped it into my blackwood set and really enjoyed it. I am two drones short of an all boxwood Gaita in C. I may end up using the last of my French Boxwood (much of it figured) making a pair of drones for this before I head south to Lark Camp. I have another set all boxwood in Bb, with an alternate boxwood chanter in A and a blackwood G chanter - and reeds that will work for the drones in all those pitches.
Stay tuned… I’ll be doing some experiments with alternative materials this fall. I am pursuing something different…
For now I’ll stick to wood. But after today’s experiment - I just really don’t like working Delrin. Bully to those who do.
On another note: what is the difference between a Termite and a Wind Instrument Maker?
Answer: the Termite knows what he is doing.
Your post Casey makes one thing stand out to me which I have wondered for awhile. Why would anyone use ivory for rings, outside of decoration of course. The metal rings I can see for reinforcing the tenons but ivory is more delicate and needs more hydration than the wood itself. I had a cocus Meacham flute at one time and the wood was in great shape without a crack but the ivory was reconstructed, it looked great, but I doubt it added anything to the structural integrity. The ivory was a nice looking mosaic. Why ivory or any delicate material for rings?
So you just don’t like turning delrin or you don’t like the sound of it?
In my very limited experience, I did partly turn a delrin flute and didn’t find anything bad with it, it’s actually less messy than wood.
Delrin heats up and dulls my tools which are pretty dull to start with (hey, this works for me with wood!), the chips that come off of it I don’t like and then there is an overwhelming plastic smell. There is no way to make it look pretty, at least with the delrin that I tried. I haven’t made any flutes out of it so I don’t have the experience to see how it compares with my other flutes. The few delrin flutes that I have tried lack a bounce to the sound that wood delivers - but that may have more to do with the flute design than the material. I’ve experienced the same in some wooden flutes, including some of mine.
Ivory use is an aesthetic from the Baroque period and earlier. Much of what was used was fossil ivory which is still coming out of Siberia and Alaska. I am uncomfortable with any that is creamy white as it is impossible to separate from the modern ivories. However, the deep reds and greens of the Vivianite in fossil ivory is a good sign that it was properly sourced. I’ve seen some fossil walrus ivory that is very hard and interlaced and then seasoned for several thousands of years. This is a decent structural material. Those Pleistocene tusks took a lot of abuse! But I have also seen and even collected some fossil ivory and teeth that basically was riddled with cracks and impossible to use. The last chunk of tusk that I purchased from someone called Ivory Jack was Alaskan mammoth and it was more or less unsuitable.
Ivory is or was a favorite (or was a favorite) material for turners due to the high degree and fine detail possible with it. The main point of its use was to embellish.
‘The few delrin flutes that I have tried lack a bounce to the sound that wood delivers - but that may have more to do with the flute design than the material. I’ve experienced the same in some wooden flutes, including some of mine.’
I think it’s delrin–which is not to deny that wooden flutes can ‘lack a bounce.’ I’ve now played most of the delrin flutes,
owned three, several of them made masterfully as far as I can tell. Nothing the matter with the design, which strikes me as excellent and contrived to take advantage of delrin’s acoustic virtues. With some of them I thought initially the flute was
brilliant, and then after a half hour to an hour or so, I feel there is something unsatisfying about the sound.
It’s very hard to talk about this, not enough words,
and I don’t want to mention particular makers (all of whom I respect and whose
wooden flutes I’ve owned), but the brilliance of the sound in the best delrin flutes I’ve played is somehow ‘on
the surface’ and, at its core, the flute’s sound lacks the resonance and vibrancy and presence I find in good
wooden flutes, including by the same makers. Maybe I’m idiosyncratic, as others think these sound just as good
as good wooden flutes, and so far every delrin flute I’ve played has left me unsatisfied with the sound. I think the
sound I liked best was that of the Seery. FWIW.
At the Boston Early Music Festival last week I played an all-ivory traverso for the first time, an Eichentopf copy by Von Huene (which they had alongside an imitation-ivory Denner, both early low pitch at 392). It had a very rich and deep sound, much like what a gold Boehm flute is like in comparison to the classic silver. I did like it very much. I have played both bad and wonderful delrin flutes. That doesn’t change my mind about anything, but just says that the issues are complicated. I’m all for experimentation!
had Maurice Reviol key my Delrin Gallagher because it’s such a great flute…also love my M&E.
i know that it’s not as fun to turn as wood, but for sure has it’s advantages.
Delrin heats up and dulls my tools which are pretty dull to start with (hey, this works for me with wood!), the chips that come off of it I don’t like and then there is an overwhelming plastic smell.
With delrin you have to drill just a little at the time, say 1 inch (or little more, the bigger the hole the less the heat), and oil the top of the tool every time to cool it down and lubrificate it. It will heat up even more when you make the conicity so you should have a bucket of water to cool down the metal. It didn’t smell at all when I did it. Tools can be sharpened. Sure, delrin dust is not as pretty as wood dust…
Lorenzo wrote “With delrin you have to drill just a little at the time, say 1 inch (or little more, the bigger the hole the less the heat), and oil the top of the tool every time to cool it down and lubricate it.”
Ugh! This sounds tedious. With blackwood I can pilot bore a middle joint in one pass sometimes, especially if I use compressed air in the gun drill. My hands are wearing out a bit and all that cranking back and forth with the slide would just add to the injury. Yet another reason to avoid Delrin.
Bottom line is why would I care to use Delrin? Sure its available by mail order but so is blackwood and I am sitting on a large pile of the latter and can get more easily, just 3 hours away. Its easier to turn blackwood and easier to make it look pretty than Delrin. It takes less time and less wear and tear on my hands. Delrin chips and dust have to be disposed of properly. Blackwood dust and chips biodegrades and is used as mulch in my garden. Some report that Delrin sounds dead. It doesn’t evolve in tone as the material doesn’t change shape over time. Blackwood does and for some reason the tone keeps getting better because of his. The only advantage of Delrin is that it is impervious to climate and humidity and allows one to be careless. Blackwood isn’t that hard to take care of and people are generally careful enough with their instruments.
I find that Delrin works more easily and quickly than blackwood for most operations, but you need the right tools and techniques. Pilot hole boring is usually a one step operation and it takes me around 30 seconds to gun drill a 9/16 inch diameter hole through a 9 inch long blank. I use compressed air and also a collection nozzle to suck all of the chips straight into the dust collector. Of course, some dimensions can be bought as tubing which eliminates the need to pilot drill as well as minimizing the waste material.
Murray Huggins of Colin Kyo Bagpipes in Medford, OR makes magnificent Highland pipes and chanters from a material he calls “laminate.” His chanters are among the most highly regarded in the piping world, and his laminate pipes and chanters are amazing - beautiful and musical. I’m not sure what the “laminate” material is, but I daresay it would make wonderful flutes as well.
Laminate is less expensive than blackwood but very close in tone - and very different from Delrin.
Someone should give Murray a call. He’s one of the best in the business too!
Remember Diamondwood? Sweetheart pics were made of it for awhile, and it didn’t sound bad (though I thought less good than
plain old wood). But I believe the flutes were prone to breaking and I think the stuff is no longer used by the Sweets.
Haven’t used Ebonite. Isn’t that a vulcanized rubber material with red lead in it? If it uses natural rubber I’d have to avoid it due to my wife’s latex allergy. And with lead - its like no way do I want to be near that. I value my brain cells.
There are all sorts of rubbers and woods. Delrin has market acceptance but I just find it unpleasant so I won’t use it. It took a while for people to get used to the idea of Mopane and finally it has been accepted as a decent material. The other materials are possibilities - but Dymondwood uses various resins to hold it together - possibly containing formaldehydes (this is also released by Delrin when heated up too hot by dull tooling according to the MSDS) etc.
For me blackwood is plentiful and convenient with Gilmer Woods just 3 hours south of me. Its fun to go there and pick out flute wood. I’ve been buying from him for all but one year of my flute making career. Most years exclusively. The wood is traditional and widely accepted for woodwinds.
Jim - If you drive on highway 54 to Warrensburg (or is it 50), you can taste the city’s lovely sulferous water…not harmful to humans at all but tastes nasty.
Casey - Latex is unvulcanized rubber, ebonite is vulcanized rubber with sulfer added to it…no idea if ebonite would set off a latex allergy since it’s vulcanized. Has your wife ever bowled and was it a problem? Those black bowling balls are still ebonite most of the time (some are made from other polymers now, especially the colored ones).
I agree with Dave, it is very easy to work if you know how to work it. All my cutters are carbide, Delrin will never dull them. Gundrills go right through the stuff, providing you are not overheating the tip. You never want to get this stuff to it’s melting point! I get the Delrin pre-drilled, so there is less waste. It comes with a hole just under 3/4", this works great for head joints and barrels. I am not make many flute at the moment, so I mainly use Cocuswood or Boxwood, Blackwood is so messy…
I’ve only tried a few delrin/polypenco flutes and they seemed to play alright but were exceedingly heavy.
Poly is heavier/denser than blackwood, so it seems to me that to get the same potential for vibration the flute tube would have to be correspondingly thinner.
This is especially true of poly Highland pipes, which feel twice as heavy on the shoulder as an ordinary wood set. I can’t imagine why the pipemakers insist on using the same thicknesses of everything on their poly pipes. Tonally the poly pipes and blackwood pipes are quite similar: I had two blackwood and one poly set all by Dunbar and the bass drones sounded indistinguishable. The poly tenor drones were a tad louder, but when I measured them I found that they had slightly bigger bores than the wood ones.
Of course with a thinned flute head you need the chimney. But what about the flute body? Do you need to maintain the same chimney height as wood flutes? Silver flutes have much reduced chimney heights on their toneholes, don’t they?
Does anyone make a good-playing thin-walled poly flute?
BTW Casey I used to have a wonderful all-boxwood Gaita Gallega in C. Blackwood rings. But I sold it on Ebay a few years ago.
