i wonder if this is the Muse’s way of telling one to shut up ?
i’m huffing my way through a set of tunes and suddenly , i’m just …huffing ?
my cork popped down as far as the embouchure hole and that certainly put a stop to my gallop .
i might add that no one missed my playing in the next few sets .
talk about adding insult to injury …
Hammy is away in foreign parts , so i can’t ring him , so , i wonder if anyone can point me to a thread where this problem is dealt with ?
i do remember someone mentioning positioning the cork , with the swab stick , but there is no mark on the thing to show what distance it should be in the head .
so i wonder if anybody is awake at this hour , so i can cry on their shoulder.
maybe i should call the Garda help line , or Flute Aquisition Anonymous , or Norton Anti Virus help centre , they’re always so helpful…
stop ! nobody move , or the piano player gets it !
problem solved , ish.
i went to Terry McGee’s site and got some info there , but the mark he’s talking about is at the bottom of my Hammy swab stick .
(it’s like a prop from one of those Hogwart movies )
i thought the mark was to be in the middle of the hole where you put the dried out baby wipes through for mopping out the flute .(Calvin Klein are no longer producing those recyclable t-shirts )
so now i have the effin cork in some sort of reasonable in tune position and i’m not touching the bleedin thing again .
but , iv’e noticed that it’s not really solid , like , fixed .
is this normal ? do i now have to dig out the ould PTFE tape and perform field surgery ?
You’ve got several options here…but part of it depends on what Hammy uses for a cork.
Is it just a cork? Nothing glued on to it? If so, a good soak in a pot of boiling/very hot water will rehydrate your cork. Or, you can get another cork (this allows you to drink the contents of the bottle first which I find a plus), sand it down if needed, and replace the cork. You can also wrap the cork, according to others at least, in plumbers tape to add a bit of thickness.
Personally, I’d say boil it or soak in hot water (electric kettles are great for heating the water quickly) or replace. It’s not rocket science either way.
Eric
From the info given on another thread here, the distance from the cork face to the center of the emouchure hole should be 20mm. And Hammy uses a cork that has a lapping of cork over plastic, so since there is cork on the outside, it could easily have shrunk a little with age. You might want to ask Hammy for a new cork.
A wooden dowel is the easiest to push the cork with (the larger the better), and you can easily mark the correct postioin of the cork (20mm) on the dowel for checking it when you think it may have moved out of position.
