I’ve made a spirit flute, but the tone is very breathy / airy. I am hoping to get a mellow warm tone. Can you suggest how I can alter the flute to achieve this? If needed I can replace the cutting edge to improve the tone. The angle is pretty shallow at this time. Perhaps 20 degrees.
Thanks 
Presumably you’ve tried moving the duck towards the windway blade? That is the NAF equivalent of what you would do with a fipple-flute: move the fipple towards the blade. This makes a big difference in the breathiness.
If your windway hole is too long, even moving the duck won’t make much difference. You could try poster-putty or similar to shorten the hole, but that’s not practical in everyday use. It will indicate the truth (or otherwise) of the proposed solution. It may mean making a new flute. 
Yep, I moved the block/fetish back and forth to maximize the sound. I was concerned that too small of a windway would also create problems so perhaps I over compensated. This is a test/prototype spirit flute. I will try your shortening idea out, thanks!
I have already routered out the whole mouth area once to make changes. I can certainly do it again to test as well. If do I will also try 30 degrees for the windway blade 
routered !!!
dont use that word!!
your fipple hole , or whatever you want to call it , in my experience should be 1/4 x1/4 and you want a good degree of angle, I cant say exactly a number . I do it by sight.
If its wider cool , if its longer Nto South , forget it . and start another. No matter how far you push your bird up , it wont ever sound right. I made many flutes to learn this stuff.
a wider hole = more volume and IMHO a less compressed tone. I like a smaller as referred to hole.
feel free to pm me, Im kinda burned out on actually making them , but talking someone thru it is still fun.
Steve
Sorry I do not normally use a router but in this case it is to be able to reuse the same flute body over and over until I get the mouth right, it is a prototype/template so I would not use a “R” on the final one
I was thinking of using the golden ratio 1.618 wide and 1 long. I’ll bet that the current mouth is too long. I will be narrowing the windway here in a bit and I will post the results.
I have not mentioned that the spirit flute I made is a Contra-bass flute. It is 36 inches long with a bore cross section area of π (Pi) square inches This is my second spirit flute. The first was a modest 18 inches long and sounds great. Actually I was stunned that my first attempt would sound so good. In fact I gave it to my mother as a gift.
I placed in a section of wood to narrow the windway, it helped quite a lot but it is very easy to overblow now. I have not changed the angled lip yet, I think I will take it out and replace it with a 30 degree lip and see how that does. I’d love to buy a contra bass but they are around $450 US
gernich , your fipple cutting edge should not be super sharp. rather than a blade , more like the thickness of one of those cheapy vinyl 3 ring binders , , not too flat , but not too sharp, wow, that doesnt help any does it , sorry
Wow I always thought sharper → better. I’ve seen a drawing on the internet showing a concave lip rather than flat, is that what you meant? Can you attach a drawing maybe? Thanks for continuing to help me If you want to see the first one I made. Here is my youtube channel:
Gern, fantastic!!! I wish my 10th attempt would have turned out as well as yours.
Ive never seen a flute made w/ the bandsaw cut & a flat bore , but it works.
The fourth hole , if you can get used to it. Instead of having mode 1 or mode 4 , you can have m1 & m4 available to youjust by anchoring either your index on 3 rt hd. or ring f. on 4 left hand. and changing anchors to go between modes.
the uses of both in the same improv. are mostly just tension creaters, but can be used . In a way m4 sounds more "NA Indian " to me. like im dancing around the tepee
you did a great job.
Im sorry I cant make a drawing for you, my comp. skills are extremely limited.
beautiful work , and good playing too.
I usually leave the overblows , mostly for a effect , rather than trying to play them, for me they are too high compared w/ the reat of the tones.
try making , wolf howls, and bird calls, mourning dove sounds , these are fun & you can incorporate them into your playing.
Thanks It was a tablesaw, I misspoke, but I did annotate that in the video. About the fourth hole i totally agree, I bought very “inexpensive” flute and I could not figure out the scale(s), the booklet that came with treated it as one scale, until I used Audacity to get the frequencies of the notes and then I realized it was two interleaved pentatonic scales. No worries about drawings. I found a very cool flute design on this web page http://www.dbeweb.com/kayak/pages/flute.html I am going to give his design a try, except I will be doing a square bore. his ID is 3/4" so my side A will be 21/32
3/4 = diameter
3/8 = radius
area = 3.1415927 * ((3/8)^2) = 0.441786
Side A of square = sqrt(0.4417860) = .664670 = 21/32 + a teency bit.
I did not want to play the overtones but I messed up and so I incorporated them in… Thanks for checking out my videos, I also looked at yours, man you play a lot of instruments, and play them well! very cool
Thanks gern , but Im a musical moron. I cant read music , my ear works ok though… If I would stick with one instrument , maybe I would get good someday , but alas,. for about 20 yrs I stuck w/ guitar only , but hardly ever play it now.
Look forward to your next build.
[ Thread revival. - Mod ]
Here is a silent video that I made on making Native Flutes using a mini mill.
http://www.youtube.com/user/dbingamon?feature=mhum#p/u/0/iKlX2-Za3RU
There are many ways to make flutes. This is one of many.