Just learned something talking to Pat O.
Maybe this has gone by already on the board
and I missed it.
Anyhow the headjoint on the Nicholson and Pratten
is the same. Which means that if you have
a Pratten you can buy a Nicholson body,
and vice versa.
i think you mean the head joints that Patrick makes for his Nicholson and Pratten models are interchangeable.
I don’t believe actual original Nicholson head joints will fit on the original Pratten bodies…at least mine don’t.
And it might just be the headjoint. My O/Nich barrell doesn’t fit on my O/Pratt body.
So . . . the tuning slides match.
Stuart
Well, I’m getting a keyed flute. I have
a Pratten keyless. Patrick said I could get a Nicholson
keyed body or a Pratten keyed body. He said the headjoint fits both.
We talked at some length and I figure if the barrel
would need to be replaced to fit the Nicholson
(which would cost a good deal, in fact) he would have
said so.
I know he’s made some changes to the Nicholson.
Is it possible this is why your Nicholson barrel
doesnt’ fit your Pratten body? Maybe the
headjoint has been changed.
Eh, could be.
Not a huge deal, of course . . . but I think it just reflects the handmadeness of the whole thing.
Stuart
There was an adjustment of some sort made to the standard dimensions of the mortise in the barrel of Patrick’s headjoints sometime in the last few years. I had my old one (circa 1997) bored out slightly to match the new spec, so I could swap it around on flutes that had been corked for the new spec. Had to re-cork the top tenon on my Nicholson, but now everything works together.
I’m speaking here of Blackwood and the like; my little boxwood Rudall has a radically different set of measurements for the mortise and tenon, such that the headjoint couldn’t be made to interchange. I believe this is on account of the properties of boxwood, rather than the different model. Holding this aside, Patrick’s headjoints are, to the best of my knowledge, all made the same regardless of the model, custom work excluded. Cheers,
Rob
So does the pratten/nicholson headjoint fit the rudall body?
all other things being equal, etc. One headjoint
for three models?
Nope. Tenon’s too big.
Rob