Just wondering why nobody is making flutes out of olive wood. I recently saw some amazing whistles made of the stuff. I once heard from a baroque flute maker that olive was great for flutes.
So makers (or others in the know) is there a reason olive wood isn’t used more for tooters?
Doc
Pretty one here, first flute in the gallery section:
I was talking to someone at a session last week who said they used to have an Olivewood by Casey Burns. I think it was Tamadden. The story was he had a friend whos house he used to play at, and the cat at the friends house wouldn’t leave the Flute alone. He said it smelled just like Olive Oil.
Windward Flutes makes Olivewood Flutes, I found that link on Brad’s site. No idea what they are like.
Mr. Seery has Olivewood listed on his site as an available wood.
There’s also a picture of one on the Seery site.
Olive isn’t quite as tough as blackwood, but it sure
is purdy. Specific gravity is around 0.89. May be
similar to boxwood? Correct me if I’m wrong..
European Boxwood (Buxus sempervirens)
Origin: Pyrenees and England.
Boxwood is a dense, heavy wood with a density of 0,95-1,1 gm/ccm.
Boxwood is a little denser. It would be close to the boxwood that is grown in the US and South America. 
Thanks m8! 
[quote=“Unseen122”]I was talking to someone at a session last week who said they used to have an Olivewood by Casey Burns. I think it was Tamadden. The story was he had a friend whos house he used to play at, and the cat at the friends house wouldn’t leave the Flute alone. He said it smelled just like Olive Oil.quote]
Yup that was me. I had a lovely Olivewood flute by Casey - don’t remember who I sold it to.
Anyway, Lesl Harker’s cat was nuts about that flute! And I don’t blame him. The flute smelled just like a bowl of spanish olives, with perhaps the slightest overtone of pimento.
All the best,
Tom
I think one reason it’s not used much is the difficulty (and expense) of obtaining blanks large enough for flutes. I checked a few different places and have yet to find turning squares big enough for flutes. No logs either.
Yes it was our cat Tasha (r.i.p.) who was very fond of green olives and used to sneak a lick of any plate that had “olive juice” on it. On the night under discussion, I had put Tom’s flute down on the couch and she went over to it sniffing, then licked the tone holes, then up to the blow hole and tried to bite it - at which point I snatched it out of her lioness jaws..
A good thing about Olive wood is that it doesn’t tend to crack as much as black wood although it is not a hard. It makes a very nice tone especially in whistles as well as flutes. Finding a source that has the blanks large enough to make a flute is a challenge. Seery does offer flutes in Olive. If you have any questions about obtaining one, or any other Seery instruments, Please let me know.
There’s a beautiful olivewood flute with blackwood rings here:
http://www.windwardflutes.com/windwardflutes.html
(Click on “gallery”–it’s the second flute.)
Now, did you have to do that to me!!! 
Are we resurrecting the “Flute Porn” thread?
I’m not going to look! I’m NOT! I’m NOT!
Well, it’s lovely, but does it work?
That is, metal rings are used to reinforce sockets.
If the wood is left thick (as it is in this flute) they
can perhaps be omitted. I’ve always wondered
about the effect of ivory rings. Does the ivory
really protect the wood?
In this case, does the blackwood really protect the
olive wood? Or is this just pure decoration?
I’ve considered doing something like this, but
binding with polyester cord under the rings. That
tends to make the whole stack rather large.
– Don
That is a beautiful flute. To paraphrase Hannibal Lector, I covet it.
Anyway. . . Don, a lot of flutes don’t need metal rings to support the sockets and tenons, nor are they that thick. I’m eagerly awaiting a ringless, tuning slideless boxwood from the inimatable Mr. Burns. He makes them that way all the time as do a number of other makers (Patrick Olwell comes to mind, I’ve seen several of his boxwood and blackwood flutes that have no rings).
However, if it’s a concern, I think the polyester cord idea might have some validity. I think it would depend on how rigid or not the material is.
Mark
Has anyone played a flute by Windward flutes? Sure look pretty…
Dave
The deal with rings on socketed joints is this: If you do a thin wall socket joint, then you need a ring, if you go without rings, then you make a thicker socketed joint, by adding a flare or thicker rounded section externally. Sometimes you’ll see both the flare and a ring, either for extra strength, or because the rings were added as an upgrade after the fact.
Ivory is pretty strong, but does tend to crack over time, when used as a thin ring, so it’s usefullness as a reinforcing agent is limited. However, Ivory is rarely used on new instruments, so you more often see Ivory substitutes, which tend to be plastics/polymers of one sort or another. Typically the stuff is pretty soft: Turn a thing ring from the stuf and chuck it a little bit too hard in the lathe in the process, and it deforms. Some of these substitues can be quite brittle as well, so again, a decorative thing element, rather than a structural one.
If you look at the flute in the link, it has an external flare (thick socket) so the ring isn’t for support, although, a maker could make a thin (or thick) socket, and then use a metal band for strength, with ivory or imitation ivory on top of that. However, with this arrangement you can here you have some long term bonding issues, but it can be done.
Loren