I’ve got a call in to Pat, so yes, I realize that’s the best course of action. But, seeing as how I need to play tonight, and might not hear back from him . . . I thought I’d ask the crowd.
My tuning slide (Olwell, silver) is really sticking. Last night I got it good and stuck and thought it would never move, but I put it down, picked it back up, and got it apart. I had recently oiled the flute, and I thought maybe that something gunky had gotten into the slide. I wiped it off, and noticed some black powder on the cloth. My thought was: either this is tarnish, or it’s graphite.
Does Pat advocate any kind of lube at all on his slides? This one has been perfectly fine, but lately it’s gotten quite tight. The flute’s about a year old.
Graphite spray, available in hardware stores, can help with stuck, or sticking, metal things. When it’s apart, spray some on and then turn it as you put it back together.
And thanks to Jessie. I thought it might have a wee bit of graphite shpritz on there. I think you must have responded as I was typing my thingy to Carol.
I play an Olwell flute with a headjoint that’s 11.5 years old. (The rest of my flute, the part with the keys, is only 6.5 years old because the headjoint is from the keyless flute I had while serving my five years on Patrick’s waiting list.) When I got the keyless flute from Patrick, he was very clear on his instructions to use nothing to lube the slide. As he told me then, it’s the crud that gets on the slide that causes it to stick, and if you use a lubricating agent on the slide you’ll attract more crud than if you don’t. So I never lubricated my slide and it worked perfectly, until a year or so ago when it gradually got very tight and almost stuck. Remembering Patrick’s advice, rather than introducing a lubricating agent at that point I decided instead to take the slide apart and clean it very thoroughly inside and out. I used a cotton ball soaked with rubbing alcohol to do this, and it did the job. The slide went back to normal immediately.
Merely wiping the slide off as Stuart did would help a bit, I suppose, but unless you use some kind of cleaning agent it probably won’t totally fix the problem, as you’d just be re-arranging the crud on the slide rather than removing it. You want a cleaning agent that’s not going to leave any residue of its own, and rubbing alcohol fits that bill and doesn’t harm the metal (AFAIK, anyway). My cotton ball wasn’t super-dirty when I was done, but it did have some dirt on it. So it appears that it doesn’t take a lot of crud on a slide to stick it up…
One other thing. Rather than using graphite spray as Jessie suggested, if cleaning the slide with rubbing alcohol doesn’t solve your problem I would suggest sending the headjoint back to Patrick and let him fix it. I’m sure he would gladly do it, probably at no charge.
The reason I don’t like the graphite spray idea is that it could end up making your slide too loose, which is as bad or worse than being too tight. There’s an extremely fine tolerance between the correct outside diameter of the inside joint and the inside diameter of the outside joint for the slide to operate properly. I know a fellow whose slide was just a wee bit loose, and one day as he was holding the flute in his hand with the headjoint pointed down, gravity took over and the slide separated, damaging the head piece when it hit the floor. Not good. Rather than self-medicating your slide (other than keeping it clean, of course), it’s best to let the professionals handle it for you!
Well, thanks for the suggestion. I felt like I had remembered that Pat wanted us to use nothing, but was thinking of graphite. I didn’t think of rubbing alcohol, but seeing as I have rubbing alcohol . . . I’ll give it a shot and report back!
I think what you want to do is clean it very very well. That’s what the rubbing alcohol is for. If you had something very sticky there you might have to use a stronger solvent.
If after cleaning very very well the slide still sticks, then maybe it changed shape for some reason, and a trip to the Maker or another good instrument technician would be recommended.
Now, I think a little rubbing alcohol might be … refreshing … ?
OK, seriously. In Boehm land, cleaning the tenons & tubing & slides are the first thing you do in such sticky situations – and a soft cloth or Q-tip & rubbing alcohol are the only way to go.
Second, if that doesn’t help, go to (you’re gonna love this) K-Y jelly, also known as “personal lubricant.” It’s water-soluble, and ummm, leaves no residue.
… Okay, let the double-entendre field day begin!
cat.
(Oh. And definitely send it back to Patrick or a qualified repairer. You might just have a ding or something in there that needs ironing out.)
There’s no double-entendre involved; it’s just plain ol’ Kentucky Jelly!
I ended up cleaning off the key oil and using (as had been suggested to me in a PM) a polishing cloth. There was quite a bit of tarnish, even though the slide looked clean. Once I used the tarnish/polishing cloth, all was fine.
So, lesson learned. If the maker wants you to keep the slide clean, keep it clean. Alcohol, then a good rubdown (on both the tenon and socket of the slide) with a polishing cloth.
Too bad I didn’t try the KY thing; then I could have said, "I put KY on the male part and . . . "
