Hail All,
Apologies if this has been dealt with already; I tried a search of the forum but was not successful:
Does anyone know of a good flute stand for several flutes of various bores (so that I don’t have to lay them down on the floor on stage)? A portable solution would be doubly nice.
Thanks & Regards,
Harry.
there was this one from April this year https://forums.chiffandfipple.com/t/stand-for-our-dear-irish-flutes-searching/70429/1
and this one from 2005 https://forums.chiffandfipple.com/t/flute-stands/31279/1
'bet ya didn’t think to search on “quiver”… 
Many years ago a friend of mine made me this flute stand:
It’s very portable; I just have two caveats:
because it’s made of wood, and wood swells when wet, the dowels can be hard to remove at the end of an evening of playing.
the risk with this and any other kind of flute stand is that your flutes tend to face a stronger risk of being knocked over than they would if you just put them on a cloth (such as a towel) on a chair next to you. I find that I worry a lot less with my flutes on a chair than on the stand, especially when there are sound equipment folks or other musicians scurrying about.
I make single stands out of PVC by drilling a dowel-sized hole through the middle of two pieces in the shape of a cross. Then I push the dowel through. Works great! I don’t see any reason you couldn’t do the same thing with 3 pieces of PVC in the shape of a double cross and then drill some extra holes through the middle piece. Don’t feel like posting a picture - sorry…
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I just bought 2 of these K&M tripod stands - 9.5mm and they are perfect for either of my Hammy flutes or any of my whistles.
There are other stands on this site, too.
http://www.music123.com/Woodwinds/Woodwind-Accessories/Instrument-Stands/Flute-Piccolo-Stands/Folding-Flute-Stand.site7prod464538.product
Depending on keys etc, a PVC tube taped to the side of a microphone stand is quite good - put a drip-permeable base on the tube and use one tube per instrument. I suppose one could make versions of these lined with something soft, e.g. velvet, wide diameter pipe insulation foam tubes, etc. Or a ring of foam around the lip at the top? (If I used whistles then I’d probably just have on tube for all of the whistles.)
I have a tripod stand for my Boehm flute, but I never use it anymore - frankly it terrifies me these days.
I’m still fine with mine, cheap and nice solution
https://forums.chiffandfipple.com/t/ikea-flute-stand/67147/1
After I accidentally managed to kick all my flutes off their tripods at once on stage, I switched to this:
I put a black velvet table cloth onto it to make it look neat on stage. Has space for all my flutes and whistles, my drink, a towel and all sorts of more stuff. Not too portable, but very secure.
These fall over really easily. I used these for my silver flute for awhile - until I got tired of repairing the dents to the head! In addition, I kept having to have a repairman retighten the foot piece, as it weakened over time (every few weeks) from the wiggle-weight of the flute on the dowel. With a wooden flute, I don’t want to think about possible accidents and short-long term effects…
My solution at the time was a long quiver-like basket, padded with foam, which I attached to my mike stand. The flute can be pulled out or dropped in quickly (I was most often on guitar, needed to grab the flute periodically). A cross foam set up could be added to allow for multiple flutes, so they don’t bang each other.
Really, any dowel stand is a potential disaster - gigs are hurried things, and people on stage, including the flute owner themselves, move too quickly for safety. For laid-back shows, I think the small, stable, table idea is good - maybe some sort of ridge/edge can be added, to prevent something heading over the edge with a minor knock (especially if any of the flutes are keyless!). For more active gigs, a weighted basket(s), or fixed baskets/quivers, are probably your best bet.
You mean a rack? or something?
Mack Hoover had some interesting creations for sale. Mostly for whistles and it looks like only one might be left…(near bottom of page).
Nice ideas & suggestions. Thanks. 
There’s a fellow in (yes, this is for real) Soddy Daisy, Tennessee who used to make absolutely perfect folding/portable flute stands and sell them on ebay. They’re basically shallow hinged wooden boxes that fold flat and lock open and have 8 different-diameter dowel rods. Folded they’re about the size of a Thinkpad (though about 1/2" deep) and the dowels fit inside just so; open they’ve got a lovely big “untippable” footprint. I keep various flutes from Eb to Bb plus whistles of all persuasions on there and it’s always been rock-solid. The thing is varnished so there’s not too much of a moisture or swelling problem, either.
ANYWAY, I’ve given his name to several people but don’t know if they’ve ever written him … so now I’ve taken the bull by the horns and written him myself asking if he still makes the things. I’ll let you know what he says!
I like the modern Hercules stands. These hold three flutes, and you can change the bore diameters to fit everything from an alto flute, clarinet, piccolo etc.
These flutes are Francois de Villiers’ modern ethnic flutes. They have similar bores to standard D key flutes or Boehm C concert flutes.
…and the flute stands collapse very compact and fold the legs in for transport 
Hi all,
Thanks for the suggestions. In the end I got one of the 3 prong Hercules stands from Amazon. As I suspected the 2 bigger prongs were too thick for tapered bore wooden flutes, so i had a friend turn them down for me on his lathe (they are solid lumps of PVC type plastic, so this was easy work, and they are still strong and durable). It worked out great. The piccollo prong is a bit flimsy, but it is fine for an Orwell bamboo F flute that I need to house, and would be great for a whistle or something.
So, happy ending there I think.
In case anyone else is still looking. I agree that most flute stands are easily knocked over at gigs. I decided that the main problem was top-heaviness. So I made this stand and mounted it on an old desktop mic stand. The thing unscrews and fits neatly in my gig bag.
After my flute on its stand got knocked over a couple of times, I decided a change was in order. To give my flute better stability at rest, I bought an old thin leather coat for cheap at a thrift store and used one of the arms, shoulder opening for the top end, tied off the cuff (now bottom) end so the tying is inside the sleeve, and added tie-laces top and bottom, making a flute bag that could hang securely off of the mike stand. From the extra material I added an outer, smaller pockety thing to keep whistles in. I could have made that part bigger, but it serves well enough, and the main thing is that it’s all about the flute first. Hasn’t been knocked over yet. And there could be a number of possibilities explored to accommodate multiple flutes…the other sleeve immediately comes to mind, for one.
One could do the same using non-leather sleeves, too, I should think. Denim’s easy, or if you want to be stylin’, a nice jacquard, say.
Absolutely! Or should I say “Absoflutely!”
Who cares about the whistles anyway? 