I’ve been seeing these things on Ebay as of late. Has anybody had any experience with them? I’m sure they’re FLO’s off the shelf, but I’ve heard the Eb was tweakable to a playable condition. Any opinions outside of the expected negative knee-jerk reactions?
Oh yeah here’s the link
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2552230865&category=10183
I’d like to know the same thing. Gee whiz I’ve always wanted a little
keyed F flute cheap enough that I didn’t have to worry about it. This
looks like it fits the bill. But what’s FLO, and do you know if they play at
all? Should I get one? or is it just a pretty baseball bat? What’s usually
the matter with these Pakistani flutes. Considering that it would not be
my main flute.
I have a sudden flare up of FAD. Never thought I’d look at a Pakistan flute.
Cheers, Lesl
Some of those keyed Pakistani flutes sure look nice, don’t they? I had an unkeyed one in rosewood which I had dreams of tweaking into a playable flute, but I recently sold it at a garage sale for someone to use as a wall decoration. It was unplayable straight from the box, I tweaked a few notes into tune, but it never sounded right at all. I think it probably needed to be rebored to get anwhere which I can’t do.
As for the keyed ones, they definitely have more parts that mine did, but mine LOOKED very nice…but looks are very deceiving!
However, I’d be more than happy to have someone else buy one, perhaps the keyed D flute, and let me know if they’re better than the one I bought. 
Eric
Oh Eric they are so tempting. Expecialy that F. I remember everyone bad mouthing the plastic east indian Eb keyed flutes. I bought one anyway and it is a pretty darn good tooter, and its even in tune. Please someone buy one. I have to know…
Tom
FLO = “Flute Like Object”, like you said - a pretty baseball bat.
Not always the case though, it could be repairable or even passable from go. Just cause it’s factory made doesn’t always make a flute garbage. After all Rudalls, Prattens etc were mass produced in factories. Many were garbage but all the ones that are around today were the cream of the crop & most of them been restored or reworked.
Hello .
Perhaps Alphomego123 can tell us where he got the idea that Rudalls and Prattens were mass produced in factories .He must have evidence that nobody else has .Rudall & Rose seem to have employed wonderfully skilled outworkers .Same I suspect for most of the Boosey & Hudson Prattens .[/img]
Sorry , I have inadvertantly changed Alphomega’s gender .I am not accustomed to these weird foreign codes.
Jayhawk said
I had an unkeyed one in rosewood which I had
dreams of tweaking into a playable flute, but I recently sold it at a garage
sale for someone to use as a wall decoration. It was unplayable straight
from the box, I tweaked a few notes into tune, but it never sounded right
at all.
Could you tell us more details? Unplayable like no sound came out? How
bad was the tuning, how did you tweak the notes, what was the mouth
hole like, did the flute seem to seal.. ? Sorry for so many questions. You
might be the expert here on this!
Thanks, Lesl
I wouldn’t say that R&R’s & Boosey’s etc were mass produced on the same scale as Pakistani flutes. There is waay less quality control in these modern factories.
Today’s good flutes (let’s just say >$1k) are made with at least 100x more precision than the flute makers at any of the big name flutemakers of the 19th century. They just didn’t have the technology to measure & machine wood & silver within 1/1000th of an inch back then.
Does that make better flutes? I can’t say that’s up to the individual, but the results are a hell of a lot more consistant.
This is all a crap-shoot on the cheap pakistani flutes, you may get a playable one & you might get a nice decoration. All depends if you’re a betting person with the patience to try to get the thing up to snuff. Good luck
Well, let me give it a go from memory. Remember though, it was a keyless flute NOT keyed.
Out of the box - first impression: I tried to get a sound for 20 minutes, and the best I could get made my wife exclaim something like this: “wow, that sounds just like when you’re driving on the highway and realize your window is down a crack”.
The end cork wasn’t cork, it was some weird unnatural clothlike thing that didn’t seal well. I replaced it with a real cork. The embouchure was poorly cut and not finished (there were splinters of wood inside the hole you couldn’t see well when just looking into the hole). The tone holes had actual splinters and were not well finished. I removed all of the splinters and was able to get a muted first octave. So, I oiled the thing like mad (it was dry, way dry, dry as the desert dry), put it in a ziplock bag for a week with a damp sponge, and came back to it again.
At this point, it was playable, it produced notes, but they were way off. The bottom D was right, but E was D#, F# was closer to E, etc…I started down low enlarging all the necessary tone holes, but it never worked well because I now had this very small bored instrument with whomping big holes - it was like trying to play a sieve.
The problem with the Pakistani made flutes is that you don’t know which company is actually making them. Mine had no name. I wouldn’t buy another one from whoever made mine, but that doesn’t mean there couldn’t be a company making decent ones - you’re just taking a risk in purchasing one that you don’t have with a known maker who will fix any problems.
Eric
probably better not to buy one of these things unless you play it first or can get your money back.
Oh dear that’s a good line to remember!
All the rest of what you explained was exactly what I wanted to know. So
that’s the bottom end of the gamble. sheesh.. Thanks Eric.
Cheers, Lesl
jayhawk…i think i have the same exact one. i can get a first octave, with difficulty (it’s a low D, but plays an A as teh bell note easier than D, but D’s there), but a horrible upper octave. not horrible as in out of tune, horrible as in nigh-on impossible to reach, but i’m 99% sure something needs to be done with the embrocure hole.
what adjustments exactly did you make to it?
also, what’s this about oiling and damp sponges?
I adjusted by enlarging and undercutting tone holes to the point it simply wasn’t playable. I’m pretty sure a real flute maker could have done something with it. Me, I sold it for $1 as a wallhanger at a garage sale.
As for oiling, use almond oil or a woodwind bore oil as it help the wood, and if you store it in a ziplock bag with a small piece of damp sponge it can rehydrate and keep the wood hydrated which can dramatically improve sound…but it didn’t work for mine.
Good luck,
Eric
mercifully, my tone holes seem to be okay…it’s the embrochure hole that needs tweaking, it’s just a plain old hole…drilled…
i read teh threads about oiling and the wooden recorder site who said extra fine olive oil was okay as an almond oil substitute, so that’s what i did…it’s drying now…
OK - If you’re going to go down this road I have a few recommendations. Now that you’ve oiled it, try the damp sponge in a ziplock bag for about a week routine (naturally, the flute is in with the sponge 
). Mine, and other people I’ve heard from, said their flutes came in as dry as kindling.
So you’ve checked the tone holes, and looked through the bore to make sure there are no splinters anywhere, right? Well, after the week or rehydration for the dry wood, I’d first remove the end cap (if there is one) and pop out the “cork”. Notice the quotes, mine didn’t have cork, but had this spongy stuff instead which leaked air like you wouldn’t believe. I think these sponge corks are common, and often just replacing that with a real cork (wine cork sanded to fit or buy one at your local hardware store) makes all the difference in the world. The end of the cork needs to be about one headjoint diameter distance from the middle of the embouchure hole (this is important as it will change the tuning in your upper octave notes).
Notice, you’ve not cut or sanded anything yet. My advice is try all the above first. Also, you’ll need to check how tightly the sections fit together. If they’re loose, try cork grease from a music store first to see if that tightens the seal. If not, use some waxed, nylon dental floss to wrap a few layers to tighten the joints. Now, with all that, you’ve done all the basics to give the flute a chance to work as is.
If the lower notes all work, but the flute gets out of tune on just a few of the higher notes, you might need to undercut the hole beneath the note you’re playing to raise the pitch. If that note is flat in both octaves, you’ll probably need to enlarge the hole overall instead of undercutting.
But first, start with the non-cutting stuff and see what you’ve got.
Good luck,
Eric