Hi,
It has been a while since I posted a new restoration…
This is a flute by C Peloubet, who made flutes in New Jersey back around 1845.
The head is replacement Ivory, as the original Ivory was unrepairable.
Classic American flute, small holed but with a big tone. The nice thing about the American flutes, no flat foot! Even has the original purse pads! (beats sewing up new ones…)
The embouchure is a copy of the original, 11.9x 10.1 mm
Special thanks to Jem for directing me to it! 
Another flute by C Peloubet currently on eBay:
That looks really beautiful Jon!
I bought one off a fabulous member on the forum here. It’s not as pretty as yours, but it makes a beautiful sound.
Was it hard to get a replacement head for it?
Ivory is banned in parts of the world like where I live lol.
Nice work Jon, as usual. I’ve got a new antique coming to me for restoration as well, and the quality of your renovations is the target I aspire to. Any chance of posting a “before” shot so we can see what you had to deal with?
Damn! You beat me out on that one. I knew it was a good one. Beautiful job repairing it. If I’d won it I probably would have sent it to you to work on anyway, so you’d have won either way! 
Yes, I was going to bid on that one, but that would just be greedy… 
this Peloubet is about 200 flutes earlier, the serial number is 606…
The head is made from “replacement ivory” it is a polyester resin, that has the same look and feel. It wasn’t hard to get a replacement head as I made this one… 
nice nice nice job! (as always…
)
here is the “before photo” so you can see what I had to deal with… two cracks in the ivory head not shown (typical eBay practice!) 
Broken long F block, missing guide blocks, cracked barrel, not shown… (ditto) Funny they had put the lower section in the wrong slot in the case, you can see the slot for the long F in the upper right hand corner, duh…
I believe the keys and rings are coin silver, but I have not acid tested them. The coin silver has a higher copper level then sterling, so you still get the green patina.
Slightly off-topic: Have you ever found and un-cracked ivory head?
Bob
Congratulations, Jon, on your nice reconstruction work on the Peloubet flute. The before and after photos pretty much tell the tale, but, as you say, the real challenges were not revealed in the ebay auction photos. I think that Chabrier, if he were alive today, would approve of your work.
As an aside, would the polyester resin be good for making a whole flute? How does it compare with Delrin?
Replacement ivory tends to be a little brittle, not unlike elephant ivory, but it does not have the tensil strength and resilience as you find with delrin. The tenons would be a problem, and would need external reinforcement. It cracks easier when drilling with a gun drill. The material works great when it is a lined head, as it gives it backing. That said, Rod Cameron has made lovely replicas of Baroque flutes out of replacement ivory, it just takes some finessing…
Absolutely beautiful, Jon! Congratulations.
And like Bob, I wonder if there’s an uncracked original ivory head anywhere in existence. Anyone ever seen such a bird?
I did once. It was unlined, of course, an almost absolutely pristine all-ivory late Baroque flute (I can’t recall the maker’s name, if there was one). I met it on a visit to the late Paul Davies. It was a truly fabulous instrument.
Even my unlined Pfaff flute that has a head and barrel in beautifully worked ivory is cracked… Ivory reacts a lot more to humidity difference then wood. I imagine if the flute remained in England, at a constant 60% humidity, it might remain in tact.
Once it’s off the elephant it’s only a matter of when not if it will crack.
Pak-e-derm tears dry up pretty quickly.
Here is an example of nice ivory workmanship by Pfaff, but sadly cracked…
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