Hi there, the slide of my Murray is getting looser. I pressume it might be due to temperature increasing. I almost certain that there’s no air leak, but that tiny probability is annoyingly getting around. Worst of all is that I sometimes move the slide unconsciously when playing.
A fellow player told me to put some beewax between the two tubes. It worked more or less during the winter, but now I guess it melted
Apart from sending the flute to the maker… Is there a simple way to tighten the slide? Recommendations would be gladly taken into account.
I have a few flutes with loose slides. I use the toilet-bowl seal ring wax (same as I use on my thread wrapped tennons) on the slides. It is a petroeum based urethane product and is a very stiff grease.
But I shouldn’t think that your flute is getting so hot as to melt the beeswax. Perhaps it has just broken down or become thinned by your bore oil. I bet wiping off the old wax and reapplying new will work.
i had a flute with that problem, and i applied bee’s wax to the lining every once in a while. if i remember correctly, the main wax in bol wax is actually bee’s wax (i may be wrong). yes, the slightest seperation between the two slides can affect tone, at least it did on the flute of mine.
Thanks for the replies. I cleaned the metal and the remaining stuff certainly it seemed like more oilish than wax. I rubbed the slide with a piece of beewax and got slighty better fit now (put some in the threads as well, some of them were getting dry.) Maybe the tone has improved a bit, but it might well due to a bad day or a paranoid perception. Murrays can achieve a great ‘raw’ tone when properly blowed and I can’t stand those days when I can’t find it (there’s a few of them, actually!) This flute seems to behave far better when it’s cold and humid (just my luck for living in the South…)
This tuning slide was always a bit too loose for my taste. I’ll explore the possiblity of using some thicker stuff in the hope that sooner than later I’ll drop by Mr. Murray’s to let him know.
If the slide is admitting air (a suck test will reveal that), then you should get the inner slide “expanded” by your local woodwind repairer. Any detectable leakage must be expunged!
Most probably it isn’t leaking, just slipping - it’s simply too round for its own good. Consider this. If both the inner and outer slides are perfectly round, only two things can happen - the slide will either jam hopelessly or pass through effortlessly. The hoped-for possibility - that the slide will have just the right amont of drag to be convenient to the player - is so improbable as to be laughable. And one mote of grit would bring it to a screeching halt.
So what controls drag in a practical situation is the fact that the slides are never perfectly round. The inner one, being thinner, conforms to the thicker outer one when they are assembled, but in doing so, being made of a springy material, it exerts some drag when moved. By now the solution to your problem is probably becoming obvious. All you need to do is take the inner slide between your finger and thumb and squeeze. That will put the inner slide a little out of round, and when you reassemble it, it will have more drag. If not enough, squeeze harder. If too hard, squeeze on the other diagonal. (Good to note which axis you are squeezing on in case you want to amend the squeeze.)
It is good to lubricate your slide (as the actress said to the bishop), as no metals should ever be left in contact unless lubricated, especially in the presense of moisture. A dab of cork grease, yak fat or whatever should do the trick.
That’s precisely my perception. Although wax layering will undoubtely be profitable, I don’t think there’s an actual air leak. This slide always had some ‘better positions’. if I twisted the head, the slide got tighter, but lately, all the slide seems to be rounder, so no good positions are found and runs too freely. Maybe hot weather has dilatated more the outer tube
Expanding gently the inner tube using the fingers sounds easy and the right direction to solve the issue. I’ve been reluctant to do it because I thought I’d need some machinery. Would you recommend squeezing the inner tube rather than the outer one?
Sometimes easiest solutions are rejected, our complicated minds regard them too simple to be effective.
Rafa - I’m not Terry (obviously), but I’ve done what Terry is suggesting. You need to squeeze the inner tube. It’s most likely made of a thinner material - more springy.
Thanks for the aclaration Eric, let’s allow Terry goes on making flutes.
I’ll do the trial this evening. True, I remember the inner tube thinner. I only was afraid of deforming one of the tubes too much; but in second thoughts, it doesn’t make much sense because the inner tube sort of recovers the ‘roundness’ when fitted into the outer. In any case I pressume that the altering of the shape has to be minimun.
Rafa - Yes, the squeeze is rather minimal. All I did was a small squeeze, assembled it, realized I didn’t squeeze quite hard enough, squeezed a tad more, and it was perfect. I was pretty nervous when I did this, but it worked out fine.
Thinking back on this, I believe it was Loren at that point who told me how to do this.
I’m now imagining those poor folks with Nickel slides, rather than Silver, struggling mightily to simply “sqeeze” the slide between two fingers.
Hint: If your slide is too strong to easily be put slightly out of round by finger pressure, you can place the slide end of the flute on a flat, stable, smooth surface, and then GENTLY press on the slide end with your palm, to achieve a slight ovaling of the slide tube. Remember, go EASY at first: If you don’t oval the tube enough, or at all, on the first or second try, you can always try again pushing a little harder. However, if you go too far… well, life becomes more complicated at that point, so proceed with caution, and you’ll be fine.
You’re a visionary, Loren, The tube is as hard as a horn. I tried with the fingers and I had the feeling of not moving much at all. I’ll try with a heavy hammer or even better I’ll step onto it and jump …
Just joking, I’ll try to push it gently against the floor. I’m pretty sure this time it’ll work.
With the slide in my hands, my questions about the outer/inner tube were nonsense. The outer tube is cut at the very same lenght than the barrel, so there’s no chance to re-shape it (unless you take it out)
This problem is sort of new to me, My other two flutes (Arhpa and vintage Martin Freres) have a very (very very in the case of the Arhpa) tight tuning slide. I thank all the comments. It’s been very helpful
i never had a problem with beeswax gunking up everything, being unaesthetic nor being wrong. cocusflute, to me those are absolutely ridiculous assertions on your part. it’s quick and easy and lasts (pure beeswax), plus allows control over amount of tightenss in the sleeve- has it’s advantages. i would use it again before pinching one ‘out of round’, which in my opinion, is not ‘the best’ thing to do.
The idea is to put just the slide on a solid surface, with the body of the flute being supported (by hand) off to the side, so there is no pressure on the flute body, nor pressure on the flute/slide join.
Okay, actually, my preference in the shop is to do neither waxing nor ovaling, but rather to perform a slight expansion of the inner slide - that’s really the “proper” way to solve the problem: No ovaling and no greasy kid stuff.
However, we can’t be going around suggesting folks without the proper equipment try expanding their tuning slides at home, all hell would break loose Okay, perhaps not, but sooner or later, flutes would get broken. And besides, most folks are too antsy to have their flutes fixed NOW! No one really wants to send their flute off and then wait around for the job to be done properly So take your pick: Slather on whatever nasty waxy toilet bowl sealing gunk ya got building up somewhere in the house (or on your person), or do some slide tube distorting. Either way, much like the choice between Prattens and Rudalls, there’s bound to be some disagreement. Wouldn’t be C&F without it.
actually ‘beeswax’, at least the brick of it that i have, is not greasy in the least. nor is it nasty. why suggest that it is? crazy.
i had a flute for about ten years to which i re-applied beeswax about two times, one of which i did just precautionary. it provided a leak proof tight fitting seal with no slippage. no harm done. simple and effective. expansion has it’s risks and so does putting it out of round which is the worse.
So take your pick: Slather on whatever nasty waxy toilet bowl sealing gunk ya got building up somewhere in the house (or on your person), or do some slide tube distorting. Either way, much like the choice between Prattens and Rudalls, there’s bound to be some disagreement. Wouldn’t be C&F without it. 