I’ve never used linseed/flaxseed oil to oil my flutes, but I’ve thought about giving it a shot. I went to the grocery store today, and in the health food section, they had flaxseed oil. I remember reading somewhere that people liked to buy the health-food-store variety for use on flutes.
Now, the bottle was labeled, “NOT FOR COOKING/DO NOT HEAT!” This is cold-pressed unprocessed flaxseed oil. Is that the right thing? I know I’m not going to cook it, but I just wanted to make sure.
Oh, they had another one that had extra tocopherols (vitamin E) and rosemary oil in it . . . maybe that’d be even better!
I can’t say for sure what you saw, but I do know that health food people use the oil as a heart-healthy supplement. It’s used raw, either plain, or in salads and so forth. So the “do not heat” instructions make sense.
I have some of the cold pressed flaxseed oil, and I think it works wonderfully for oiling a flute. I like it better than almond oil or tung oil.
As far as the added vitamin E, that would probably retard spoilage. I can’t say about the rosemary - but you may want to smell it before buying it. I like rosemay in food, but I’m not sure I’d want to inhale it.
Don’t you find that linseed oil is very sticky before it dries,( or in light is polimerised by the UV) .I used to use it for oil painting , varnish making and bow polishing but have never fancied it for flutes .
Linseed seems to be quite a common oil used for flutes. The stickiness to which you allude is in part due to the processing(boiling) of linseed used for oil painting and varnishing. It’s made to polymerize VERY quickly. That’s why people who use it on flutes recommend the health-food, raw variety, which doesn’t polymerize as thoroughly or quickly.
That’s just what I’ve been told by linseed afficionados, perhaps one or more of whom would like to reply?
I haven’t found raw linseed/flaxseed oil to be sticky at all. Tung oil, however scares me a bit. It’s thicker and seems like it could really build up in unwanted ways if not used extremely carefully. I’ve been happiest with linseed (flaxseed). It seems to be a happy medium between tung oil and almond oil (which seems ineffective on my instruments).
The “Care Instructions for Wooden Flutes” sheet that I got with my Casey Burns flute last year says this:
“Woodwind Bore Oil can be quite expensive. A good substitute is Artists Raw Linseed Oil. NEVER use the regular paint store variety - it’s poisonous as well as inappropriate - it has driers which acclelerate its polymerization, and can burn your house down if the rags used aren’t burned immediately (A single paper towel soaked with this will self ignite with a a few minutes!). However, the artistic oil, available at art supply houses such as Daniel Smith’s in Seattle, dries very slowly and does not go rancid with time. Almond oil can be used, but should be mixed with water and decanted to remove water soluble impurities. A little mitamin E added helps keep the oil from going rancid. Finally, avoid oiling the keys or their pads or you will end up with sticky keys. Brown paper can be used to soak up any oil that gets on these.”
I’ve followed those directions thus far. The art store where I got the recommended oil had small bottles and large bottles. I got the 16.9 fl ounce bottle and a smaller squeeze bottle for ease of use. It looks like this is going to last me for years.
I use almond oil from a health food store (food grade) for my wooden whistles. I haven’t added vitamin E or anything. I just keep the almond oil out of sunlight. I’m very happy with it so far.
Raw flaxseed (linseed) will polymerize in a few days, moreso in weeks, so the only trick is to not allow fat drips inside the flute. That said, you shouldn’t be putting any oil on that thick in any case, so a thin coat is all that’s needed. It will harden a bit (that’s the point, really), but you’ll probably play it before it hardens too much and any problematic excess will wipe out before you get anything like the varnish on an oil painting. Most makers that like linseed still advise using it less often than non-drying oils, as the thin varnish may build up over time. I used linseed on two of my flutes, one kept more in storage, and when I played it several weeks later, there was a rubbery drip inside the shaft that had formed. It rolled off pretty easily, but it made me more wary about liberal applications of (this) drying oil.
The advantages to linseed is that it creates a far better coat against moisture, and though still temporary, it creates a varnish non-drying oils like almond don’t. The latter only works if you keep reapplying the oil, the former (flaxseed/linseed) actually builds a temporary wall. An obvious pro and con situation. Most flutes are soaked in linseed during their making, so some makers feel that this was sufficient and a non-drying oil is recommended thereafter. For reasons not immediately obvious to me, many recommend that once you’ve selected your oil, stick to that one and don’t mix and match.
If you like oiling your flutes (I seem to remember that you do, Stuart), the safer oils like almond are the best to use regularly. But if you want to put on a harder finish, especially on a softer wood, linseed might be the way to go.
As for the flaxseed/linseed health benefits, it is eaten raw, on salads etc., and has many of the health benefits usually attributed to fish oils, without the mercury, or cruelty, if you’re a vegan. I’m not partial to the smell (fainter than boiled, but still reminds me of oil paints), and I like eating fish, so…
It’s worth experimenting with, IMO; unless you gloss it on and skip the country for a few months, it won’t harm the flute, and I was pleased with its results.
Gordon
I was actually thinking about trying it on the outside of the headjoint. My lower lip/chin (clean-shaven) just sucks the oils out of the flute, and I get that light, dry patch on the head. Can’t be good. So I was thinking about trying a more-drying oil like linseed on the headjoint.
Which would be easy, I think, since my headjoints (with one exception) are lined, and I could slather the almond to my heart’s content on the bodies whilst daintly polishing the heads with linseed.
I understand from my books on varnishes that the film of dried linseed oil is not waterproof, and that the oil itself tends to contain water, which is what you are trying to keep out of the flute wood .Will repeated applications of a drying oil not build up considerable deposits over a moderate period ?
Waterproof is not the idea, necessarily, just a barrier; linseed provides that. Material that is waterproof wouldn’t work (take polyurethane, for example – at some point, water would work under it and cause more problems than not. What you want is a barrier that breathes, and drying oils provide this for a longer while than non-drying. The polymerization occurs when all the moisture has lifted, water, non-drying oil, what have you; it becomes a brittle film. Put some on a paper towel and let it sit around a bit – it’ll go hard on you, having gotten inside the fibers.
As for build-up, that’s what makers worry about and why they advise less frequent oilings if you’re using linseed. But outside the flute matters a lot less than build-up in the bore, and while the buildup can occur, it’s not really permanent; the constant holding, wiping, etc. of the flute will ultimately wear it off, back down to the grain (unlike, say, a polyurethane).
Stuart, your idea (linseed outside the head) is a good one; I know others that do this, using linseed on the outside and almond on the inside, and have liked the results. I’ve done it once or twice, but I just usually find that once I’m oiling with almond, I keep going, rather than then using a second oil on the outside.
BTW, my personal feeling is that that white spot under the embouchure hole is more lip moisture than chin sweat – I get it, too, with a beard. In any case, a more resilient barrier there (linseed, rather than almond) should work better, but I usually just wipe that area more often with almond oil than I oil the entire flute, and it seems to offset that lightening problem.
All the best,
Gordon
I was just speculating on the etiology of the white spot. Moisture it could also be. Pat Olwell told me that he usually sees the worst ones from folks with no beard, and that his own flutes are white-spot-free.
Though, truth be known, Pat plays a fiberglass Sweetheart at home.
In my opinion, based on many decades of experience, it is not necessary to oil instruments made of Grenadilla (Blackwood) to prevent them from cracking.
I have played clarinet, bagpipes and flutes made of Grenadilla under all sorts of climatic conditions, … indoors, outdoors, tropical jungles, high deserts, in the Sierra Nevada, the Rocky Mountains and the Cascades, in snowstorms and rainstorms, and I have never oiled my instruments, nor have I ever had one crack. Moreover, I have never known any piper who regularly oiled his instrument or who suffered a crack in it as a result, despite the fact that the wooden parts, particularly the stocks, blow pipe and chanter can get soggy wet after being played for an hour or so even under Nevada-like conditions… so wet in fact that some “wet blowers” have to pour water out of their bags because the chanter reed is starting to gurgle slightly!
And by the way, I never knew any piper who swabbed out the instrument after playing. In fact, most like to keep the reeds kind of “humidified” when they put the pipes away, with the bag and stock walls acting as the humidor. That’s why the Great Highland Bagpipe and the Lowland/Border pipes play best when they are played every day!
Grenadilla is pretty impervious to water, but what will crack it, or any other hard wood, is sudden, rather sharp changes in temperature. If you have been playing outside in the winter, best not to set your instrument down near a heater when you come inside. But that is just common sense.
I tend to agree with you about blackwood, Mal, that it probably doesn’t need a lot of oiling. I’ve played highland pipes for a long time, and the only places I’ve seen cracks . . . knock on wood . . . have been in stocks or the blowpipe. Cracks in blackwood highland pipes aren’t all that uncommon, unfortunately, but at least they’re usually in sonically irrelevant parts.
The only caveat I’ll add to your commentary is that lowland/border pipes are usually not mouthblown, but rather bellows-blown and therefore not subject to wide humidity swings. Mouthblown border pipes are a concession to highland players who are intimidated by bellows . . . but who, when they learn the bellows, become enchanted by them!
I believe you are mistaking the Lowland/Border pipes with the Scottish Smallpipes, Stuart.
The Lowland pipes (sometimes called Border pipes) are blown by mouth and utilize a conical chanter and short triangular shaped double reed, just as the Great Highland Bagpipe does. They have the same distinctive “snarl” and are, in essence, just a smaller version of the GHP.
On the other hand, the Scottish Smallpipes are bellows driven, and have a chanter that is designed exactly like the GHP practice chanter (a cylindrical bore and a long rectangular reed ) and sound like it.
For a fuller treatment of these instruments, and the related Northumbrian smallpipes, check out the web site of Ray Sloan, who makes them.
Border and lowland pipes are most emphatically not simply small highland pipes. . . I’m really not posting all these links to be belligerent, but more because I think there are a lot of misconceptions about the instrument. Borders are wonderful pipes to play, and have a long tradition as being bellows pipes. They’re also being made as mouthblown, but that’s more a concession to folks coming from the highland tradition than something based on history.
There is a sentimental old British music hall song called “Two Lovely Black Eyes” which goes something like this:
“Two lovely black eyes.
Oh, what a surprise!
Just for telling a man he was wrong.
Two lovely black eyes!”
My eyes seem to be ok still, so you’re not being belligerent, Stuart. You’re just being right! And I’m very glad to stand corrected about lowland/border pipes being mouth blowpipe.
The only one I have seen were mouth blown, (but with a heck of a long blow pipe (!) and photos I have seen did not show any bellows but what looks like a section blow pipe which I now see is actually wooden stock(?) that can be hooked up to bellows. Well, live and learn! Tnx!
That excites my interest in them because they would be a great alternative to playing the GHP indoors with the added advantage of saving buckets of money on chanter reeds. I have a set of silver and ivory Hardie GHPs I bought new in 1967 and another set of Lawries that are over a hundred years old and have ivory and engraved German silver mounts, but seldom play either now because I can’t afford to buy chanter reeds, which are quite ephemeral as you undoubtedly know. and nowdays cost $9 or so a pop. I still have a dwindling supply of McLellan reeds left from a trove of three dozen that I handpicked in Scotland many years ago, thank goodness, but I use them unco sparingly!
Incidentallly, I also have a record of the legendary Northumbrian piper, Billy Pigg, and other old timers playing the NSPs at the Alnwick Gathering in the late 1940’s. I think this is a rare record, never imported into the USA as far as I know, and was sent to me about 30 years ago by a friend and fellow piper who was visiting Britain whilst on his sabbatical year from Stanford. Would you like me to tape it for you?
Um, YEAH! Of COURSE I would! PM me or I’ll PM you. Or email.
Borders are not quite as loud as highlands and are quite useful for indoor play with oomph. Smallpipes, as you know, are pretty quiet. Good border pipes are pretty expensive, though, which is too bad. And there are a lot fewer people making and playing them than uilleanns. I don’t know about Northumbrians (number of makers or players-wise).
Did I mention yet that I tried the linseed oil on the outside of a flute? It worked quite well. Made a very nice finish.
-Just a cautionary note on linseed oils. Offered in different varieties, the marketing terms can be misleading and potentially hazardous. I have seen an item labeled Raw Linseed Oil with a label showing volatile additives and bearing a warning label about spontaneous combustion of oily rags- likely in the event of improper disposal of rags/paper towels soaked in the drier-augmented oils.
OTOH, I use Daniel Smith’s “Refined Linseed Oil” on my flute, for this type has no driers and thus evades the spontaneous combustion hazard-to a greater degree anyhow. I’ve heard walnut oil suggested as a flute oil-any good/bad comments on it?
That’s good advice, but easy to avoid; buy linseed (as Flaxseed) in a healthfood store, not linseed (as Linseed) in a hardware or paint store. The latter is more concerned with fast drying, not toxicity, and we, of course, are more interested in gradual drying and no toxicity. Raw and PURE, unboiled linseed (flaxseed) is neither toxic (in fact, it’s good for you) and not flamable at all.
